New malaria vaccine shows promise in preclinical trials

Malaria is caused by a parasite that is spread to humans by infected mosquitoes. In 2024, almost 282 million people worldwide were infected and 610,000 died, according to the World Health Organization. Malaria is a leading cause of death in children under the age of five.

Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, an international team involving researchers from Canada, the US, and the Netherlands have developed a novel vaccine that is showing considerable promise in preclinical trials.

“Our long-term goal is to eliminate malaria by designing a vaccine that is more effective than the ones currently on the market,” says lead author Danton Ivanochko, a researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto.

When the researchers examined blood samples from people with naturally acquired immunity to malaria, they were able to identify which proteins on the parasite play the largest role in transmission.

“By fusing the two most potent parts of a malaria parasite into a novel malaria vaccine candidate, we found we could elicit much stronger immune responses compared to the individual proteins in their separate structures,” says Ivanochko. “It had greater efficacy in preclinical models relative to anything that we've worked with before.” The team’s findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers used the CLS to map the structure of human antibodies bound to their prototype vaccine. This enabled them to confirm the effectiveness of their vaccine design; they were able to see that the antibodies do in fact attach to the relevant proteins and how they attach.  

This step is critical in vaccine development, says Ivanochko, because it shows at a molecular level that the vaccine is working as intended. Having this confirmation early in vaccine development reduces uncertainty, before proceeding to costly clinical trials.

Their vaccine candidate will undergo further testing; if it continues to perform strongly, it could move to clinical trials in as early as a few years.

“We're looking forward to seeing how this is going to perform at the next level,” says Ivanochko. “We would love to help the large portion of the world that is currently greatly underserved from a health perspective and contribute toward this grand goal of global malaria elimination.”

--

Ivanochko, Danton, Kazutoyo Miura, Sophia Hailemariam, Rashmi Ravichandran, Yiting Song, Wei-Chiao Huang, Rianne Stoter et al. "A stabilized tandem antigen chimera that elicits potent malaria transmission-reducing activity." Nature Communications (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68761-1

Access images and B-roll related to this research

Media Relations:

Greg Basky
Communications Coordinator
Canadian Light Source
306-370-9446
greg.basky@lightsource.ca