Johns Hopkins Expert Briefing on Malaria – Current Research, Transmission Risks, and Reasons for Optimism

Ahead of World Malaria Day, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of

Public Health will host an expert briefing for the media about efforts to control and prevent malaria around the world. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that in 2022 took more than 600,000 lives in 85 countries, the majority being children under age 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the U.S., several cases of locally acquired malaria—transmitted to people with no history of recent travel to malaria-endemic areas—were detected last year. They were the first such cases in two decades.

The live briefing will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. EDT (1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. GMT//4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Nairobi) on Tuesday, April 16, via Zoom, and will feature two experts from the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Jane M. Carlton, PhD, and Conor McMeniman, PhD, will discuss the latest research about how and why malaria is a challenge to eradicate— from drug and insecticide resistance to climate change. 

The two experts will also share reasons for optimism, highlighting innovative current and upcoming research at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute aimed at understanding how mosquitoes are attracted to some people, but not others; efforts to modify mosquitoes to stop malaria parasite transmission; field-based studies in Zambia and India; and more.

Experts:

• Jane M. Carlton, PhD, is director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research is focused on using genomics—the interdisciplinary study of an organism’s complete set of genes and DNA, or genome—to further understand the biology and evolution of malaria parasites and their mosquito vectors. 
• Conor McMeniman, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He studies the molecular and cellular basis of mosquito attraction to humans.

Registration required: Please register here by 10:00 a.m EDT//2:00 p.m. GMT//5:00 p.m. Nairobi on Monday, April 15, to receive the Zoom link and password for Tuesday’s briefing. Questions for the experts may be submitted via the registration form in advance or via chat during the briefing.

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Resources:

• Leading Researcher Jane Carlton Joins Malaria Research Institute as Director
• What Genomics Can Reveal about Malaria’s Recent U.S. Appearance (with Jane Carlton)
• Jane Carlton Receives Honorary Fellowship from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• Using Genomics to Track Malaria in the U.S.
• Editing Out Malaria, One Mosquito at a Time
• Johns Hopkins Study Supports Potential for Injectable ‘Chemical Vaccine’ For Malaria Using Atovaquone
• The Chemistry of Mosquito Attraction
• The newest hope for disease control? Hack mosquitoes’ sense of smell.
• How Mosquitoes Find Humans: Decoding the Human Scent Signature
• Discovery in Mosquitoes Could Lead to New Strategy Against Dengue Fever and Other Mosquito-Borne Viruses