March 2025
At the end of February, CAPTIVATE-EU held its annual meeting in Barcelona! Scientists Youlia Serikova and Erica Pasini took a moment after the session to share their key takeaways and ambitions for the project’s future (see video on the right).
About the CAPTIVATE project
Malaria remains a serious health concern worldwide, while the existing vaccines offer only limited protection.
CAPTIVATE project thus aims to develop a more efficacious vaccine against P. falciparum by targeting both its sporozoite, liver and blood development stages. In this project, combination vaccine candidates will be evaluated in preclinical and human trials to discern the optimal combination for further clinical investigations. CAPTIVATE will also analyse the vaccine-induced immune responses to acquire a full understanding of malaria protective immunity and develop an advanced immunology in-silico platform, for rational design of future vaccine candidates.
CAPTIVATE project started in November 2023 and will last for 4.5 years. It assembles international experts in their respective fields:
- Academisch Ziekenhuis Leiden (LUMC, NL), Biomedical Primate Research Center (BPRC, NL), Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ, DE) and European Vaccine Initiative (EVI, DE) focus on development, optimization and evaluation of pre-erythrocytic vaccines;
- Oncoimmunity AS (NO), Immunewatch (BE), DKFZ, BPRC and LUMC focus on advanced immunology in-silico platform analyses of single-cell sequencing data and AI-based predictions of novel pre-erythrocytic antigens;
- University Of New South Wales (AU) supports LUMC to establish the first European malaria GMP sporozoite manufacturing facility;
- Quantoom Biosciences (BE), BPRC, LUMC and EVI focus on development and evaluation of blood-stage mRNA-LNP vaccine candidates;
- EVI coordinates the consortium and leads communication and ethics-related activities.
The partners met in February 2025 to discuss first promising results of vaccine candidates’ evaluation, in silico analyses and predictions and sporozoite manufacturing, and define the next steps towards combination vaccines against malaria.
CAPTIVATE’s website: https://captivate-malaria.eu
