Browsing by Author "Kobia, Francis M"

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    PublicationOpen Access
    Differential expression of plasma proteins in pregnant women exposed to Plasmodiumfalciparum Malaria
    (medRxiv, 2024-05-03) Kanoi,Bernard N; Waweru,Harrison; Kobia, Francis M; Mukala,Joseph; Kirira,Peter; Mogere,Dominic; Gallini Radiosa,; Ã…berg,Mikael; Vatish,Manu; Gitaka,Jesse; Kamali-Moghaddam,Masood
    In sub-Saharan Africa, pregnant women are at greater risk of malaria infection than non-pregnant adult women. The infection may lead to pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM) because of the sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes in the placental intervillous space. Although there are several tools for diagnosing malaria infection during pregnancy, including blood smear microscopic examination, rapid diagnostic tests, and PCR, there are no tools for detecting placental infection and, by extension, any dysfunction associated with PAM. Thus, PAM, specifically placental infection, can only be confirmed via postnatal placental histopathology. Therefore, there is an urgent need for specific serum biomarkers of PAM. Here, we used the high throughput proximity extension assay to screen plasma from malaria-exposed pregnant women for differentially expressed proteins that can predict PAM or adverse malaria outcomes. Such biomarkers may also elucidate the pathophysiology of PAM. We observed that the IgG Fc receptor IIb (Uniprot ID P31994) and HO-1 (P09601) are consistently highly expressed in malaria-positive samples compared to samples from malaria-negative pregnant women. On the contrary, NRTN (Q99748) and IL-20 (Q9NYY1) were differentially expressed in the malaria-negative women. IL-20 exhibited the highest discriminatory power (AUC = 0.815), indicating a strong association with malaria status. These proteins should be considered for further evaluation as biomarkers of malaria-induced placental dysfunction in pregnant women.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Malaria vaccine approachesleveraging technologiesoptimized in the COVID-19 era
    (Frontiers, 2022-09-08) Kanoi,Bernard N; Likhovole, Clement; Maina, Michael; Kobia, Francis M; Gitaka, Jesse
    Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria with more than 200 million clinicalcases and more than 600,000 deaths in 2020 alone. While malaria-associateddeaths dropped steadily until 2015, the decline started to falter after 2016,highlighting the need for novel potent tools in thefight against malaria.Currently available tools, such as antimalarial drugs and insecticides arethreatened by development of resistance by the parasite and the mosquito.The WHO has recently approved RTS,S as thefirst malaria vaccine for publichealth use. However, because the RTS,S vaccine has an efficacy of only 36% inyoung children, there is need for more efficacious vaccines. Indeed, based onthe global goal of licensing a malaria vaccine with at least 75% efficacy by 2030,RTS,S is unlikely to be sufficient alone. However, recent years have seentremendous progress in vaccine development. Although the COVID-19pandemic impacted malaria control, the rapid progress in research towardsthe development of COVID-19 vaccines indicate that harnessing funds andtechnological advances can remarkably expedite vaccine development. In thisreview, we highlight and discuss current and prospective trends in global effortsto discover and develop malaria vaccines through leveraging mRNA vaccineplatforms and other systems optimized during COVID-19 vaccine studies.