A Timely Launch: The Center for Malaria and Vector-Borne Diseases
“Why now?” rang the question on everyone’s mind as they refilled their coffee cups and settled in around the conference tables in the Fisher Banquet Room at UCSF’s Rutter Conference Center.
On Monday, Sept. 29, the Institute for Global Health Sciences launched its Center for Malaria and Vector-Borne Diseases, gathering scientists from as near as UCSF and Stanford and as far as Tanzania and Uganda for a research symposium and reception.
Malaria, in addition to other vector-borne diseases including Chagas disease, dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, remain major threats to global health, together causing approximately 700,000 deaths per year all across the world. These deadly diseases are transmitted by vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and even snails, making their spread difficult to control.
Despite long-standing efforts to develop effective vaccines, prevent drug and insecticide resistance, and control vector populations, the solution for permanently protecting people from these infectious diseases continues to elude researchers.
Beyond the biological challenges to vector-borne disease research, the national landscape for research funding stands to significantly impede any progress being made.
Not only has the dissolution of the USAID halted foreign aid programs such as the President’s Malaria Initiative — which was projected to prevent 15 million malaria infections and about 100,000 deaths in 2025 — but the instability of NIH funding has paved an uncertain future for research that could one day eradicate these diseases.
Under such dire and unprecedented circumstances, members of the scientific community were called upon to bring their heads together and find their collective power with the launch of the Center for Malaria and Vector-Borne Diseases. To that end, Dr. Michelle Hsiang, one of the center’s new co-directors, explained the impetus for the center.
“In the past decade or so, there has been a rise in the number and caliber of groups working on these important diseases at UCSF and the larger Bay Area. But there isn’t a regular forum for this community to connect,” Hsiang said.
“At a time during which science and global health equity, among other things, are under major threat, we wanted to create a place for colleagues, and in particular the trainees and leaders of the future, to connect, collaborate, support and inspire each other.”
The center brings together well-established groups of researchers, including the Malaria Elimination Initiative and the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, as well as several laboratories across Bay Area campuses. Facilitating this union, a networking activity asked scientists to weave through conference tables and connect across disciplines, ensuring that attendees would break through potential siloes.
These researchers then conveyed the breadth of expertise in the center by presenting four-minute lightning talks on a wide range of topics, from affordable and effective diagnostics to immune responses to infection of vulnerable populations.
While the research topics were broad and diverse, they were united by one common theme: a drive to sustainably improve the lives of people and communities impacted by neglected yet preventable infectious diseases. And it seemed most attendees were eager to use the privilege and resources afforded to Bay Area scientists to improve global health.
Dr. Fredros Okumu, professor at the University of Glasgow and former Director of Science at the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, summarized it well as he delivered the symposium’s keynote address.
“Whatever means we have, we all have a responsibility,” Okumu said.
By the end of the day, the answer to “Why now?” was clear to all who attended the center’s launch. When it comes to scientists joining together to share ideas and imagine a better future, there is no time like the present.
