Ruobing Wang’s research is focused on malaria vaccine development. She is combining her expertise in immunology and clinical trial experience with that of other scientists in Seattle BioMed's malaria program to study the immune correlates of protection against malaria infection induced by live attenuated parasite vaccines that target liver stage parasites. This will identify immune biomarkers of protection that could be used to select new antigens for development of effective subunit vaccines against malaria infection and to predict vaccine efficacy in human trials.             

Research

For more than 15 years, Wang has been involved in the design, production and testing of vaccines to control the most important human malaria parasites; P. falciparum, the parasite that imposes the greatest morbidity and mortality burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, and P. vivax, a parasite that is prevalent in Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

Despite decades of research, malaria is still highly prevalent and a major global health problem. Achieving malaria elimination will rely largely on the availability of a safe and efficacious malaria vaccine that will prevent infection by the Plasmodium parasite. As a part of collaborative efforts with Seattle BioMed’s Principal Investigator Stefan Kappe, Ph.D., and Affiliate Member Patrick Duffy, M.D., to develop a long-lasting protective vaccine, Wang’s lab works on the delineation of the immune mechanisms by which protective live attenuated vaccines work in vivo and to identify biomarkers that reliably correlate with protection against malaria infection using systems biology approaches. These efforts will lead to identification of a set of distinctive markers necessary to guide the rational selection of optimal vaccine antigens, the design of novel protective subunit vaccine(s) against malaria infection, and the methods to monitor the outcome of vaccination in interventional trials of humans. Transition of standardized biomarker detection assays to the field will accelerate and reduce costs associated with testing malaria vaccines in humans.

Wang has also worked on the development of a high-throughput immunological approach to rapidly characterize potential vaccine candidates that were identified via the malaria parasite genome sequence. Using her in vitro platform, she has identified a set of novel P. vivax liver stage antigens that are targets of T cell responses in humans who are living in the malaria endemic areas in Colombia who have developed acquired immunity. Preclinical evaluation of these vaccine antigens is currently underway. Wang is also examining the differential gene expression profiles in immune cells from humans naturally exposed to P. vivax malaria by stimulating the immune cells from these individuals in vitro with P. vivax-specific antigens, in order to learn which antigen(s) induce protective responses after natural exposure. These efforts will support the development of effective vaccine against P. vivax infection.

Themes

• Pre-erythrocytic stages of malaria parasites
• Mechanisms by which malaria vaccine protect
• Identify signatures of protective immunity against malaria
• Develop functional assay to quantify the elimination of malaria infected liver cells
• Development in vitro assay for identification of novel malaria antigens
• Design, deliver and evaluations of malaria vaccines

Wang's research is currently supported by funding from NIAID, MVI and Seattle BioMed.