Breakthroughs Blog

A team of researchers from the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Africa is developing a vaccine for hantavirus, the virus behind a worrying outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Hantavirus is typically spread by rodents, and transmission between humans is very rare. There is no specific treatment of vaccine for hantavirus, which, as seen in the current outbreak, can be deadly. The researchers are using an innovative method called insilication to make the vaccine thermally stable, aiming to reduce the high resource and economic costs of meeting the cold chain and storage requirements that are associated with many vaccines. Moderna’s mRNA-based seasonal flu vaccine outperformed conventional flu shots in a late-stage international trial of more than 40,000 adults aged 50 and older. The US Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing the vaccine after rejecting the initial application and is expected to make a decision by August 5. If approved, the vaccine would be the first mRNA seasonal flu shut in the United States. mRNA vaccines can be produced much more quickly than conventional flu shots, which could enable public health authorities to wait longer before choosing which flu strains to target, giving them more time to gather up-to-date data about circulating strains before flu season begins. A research team has discovered a previously unknown mechanism by which HIV-1 can infect resting cells, challenging previous assumptions and raising new possibilities for the development of improved treatments. For HIV to infect immune cells, it must deliver its genetic material into the cell’s nucleus, which is surrounded by a protective structure—how the virus has broken through the barrier has long puzzled scientists. Another obstacle to an HIV cure has been the latent reservoir of resting immune cells that house dormant virus, which cannot be cleared by treatment. The researchers found that when the virus spreads between immune cells, it triggers a signal that unlocks this protective gateway around the nucleus, allowing the virus to enter. They also found that this process does not require the immune cell to be activated, meaning that the reservoir can be established and maintained while cells are resting, upending long-standing assumptions and unlocking new avenues toward the development of a treatment that can destroy the virus and target the latent reservoir. 

A new US National Institutes of Health-funded study conducted in seven high tuberculosis (TB)-burden countries found that a new and improved near point-of-care TB test platform was highly accurate, effective, and scaleable. Pluslife Biotech’s MiniDock MTB test platform is battery operated, low-cost, provides results in 30 minutes, and can be used with tongue swabs in addition to sputum samples, which certain groups, including babies and people living with HIV, cannot produce. The new test is well-suited for low-resource, smaller, or more rural health clinics, which may not have access to current resource-intensive, expensive molecular testing options. The University of Oxford and the Serum Institute of India have signed a license agreement to support the development, large-scale manufacturing, and potential future commercialization of the malaria vaccine candidate R78C for use in clinical settings. R78C combines two Plasmodium falciparum blood-stage antigens, designed to target the malaria parasite at multiple points in its lifecycle, offering longer and more effective protection. This new license, which builds on a long-standing collaboration between the partners on malaria vaccine work, will initially help accelerate the candidate into clinical evaluation. The Serum Institute of India’s global manufacturing capabilities will also help ensure that resulting successful malaria vaccines can be manufactured at scale and deployed affordably to malaria-endemic countries. The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and Novartis recently announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) has prequalified Coartem® Baby, the first and only antimalarial drug developed specifically for newborns and young infants weighing between 2 and 5 kilograms. This treatment will help address a long-standing gap in malaria care for this group, who are often treated with antimalarial formulations intended for use in older children, which can increase the risk of toxicity or underdosing. The prequalification designation enables countries and global procurers to start purchasing and deploying the treatment in malaria-endemic countries; Novartis is making the treatment available on a largely nonprofit basis in malaria-endemic regions. 

Last week, the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and GSK announced the world’s first deployment of a novel cure for Plasmodium vivax malaria, the predominant malaria species in Latin America. Pediatric tafenoquine, codeveloped by MMV and GSK, replaces a multiday regimen with a single-dose, child-friendly formulation, improving treatment completion and preventing relapse. P. vivax can remain dormant in the liver, so if patients don’t receive combination treatment for both the blood and liver stages of the disease, they could have multiple malaria relapses. Up until now, the lack of child-friendly tafenoquine formulation left younger kids at risk of the disease, which is associated with long-lasting cognitive impairment. The rollout is taking place among the Yanomami people, an Indigenous population living in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in northern Brazil. Last Tuesday, Moderna announced the start of a late-stage study of its experimental mRNA vaccine candidate for bird flu, marking the first time a mRNA pandemic bird flu vaccine has reached late-stage trials. The trial is being supported by a $54 million investment by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) following last year’s cancellation by the US government of more than $700 million in contracts with Moderna supporting the late-stage development of the vaccine candidate. Moderna’s trial will evaluate the candidate, mRNA-1018, in 4,000 healthy adults in the United States and the United Kingdom. Under the agreement, Moderna also committed to, if the vaccine is approved and a flu pandemic is declared, setting aside 20 percent of its manufacturing capacity for supplying the vaccine to low- and middle-income countries at affordable prices. The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved Merck’s once-daily, oral combination treatment for HIV, offering patients another treatment option. The combination of doravirine and islatravir is being branded as Idvynso. In two large late-stage studies, the treatment combination demonstrated its ability to significantly suppress replication of HIV-1 in adults receiving another HIV treatment. While another late-stage study in adults living with HIV who had previously received treatment found that Idvynso was not inferior to Gilead’s HIV drug Biktarvy, the approval still provides another treatment option for patients. It is also currently being tested in multiple trials in combination with other antiretrovirals for potential daily and once-weekly HIV treatments. 

We have made significant global progress against malaria over the last few decades, with three countries officially eliminating the disease just last year, joining the ranks of nearly 50 countries worldwide that have now achieved malaria-free status. Yet, malaria remains a formidable global challenge, with an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths in 2024, roughly 9 million more cases than in 2023. Climate change, conflict and instability, and funding disruptions all contribute to this persistent threat.  The rise of drug and insecticide resistance, a decades-old obstacle, has drawn renewed attention as it threatens to erode years of momentum. New tools addressing resistance, including novel drug combinations and vector control tools, offer hope for regaining lost ground. The long history of antimalarial drug resistance and new innovations to curb its riseAntimalarial drug resistance dates back nearly 75 years. Resistance to chloroquine, once of the most widely used antimalarial drugs, was first detected in the 1950s and spread unchecked for decades, contributing to a global rise in malaria-related mortality. Varying degrees of resistance also emerged to the therapies introduced to replace chloroquine. By the time artemisinin-based therapies were widely introduced in the 1990s, the World Health Organization took proactive steps to protect their efficacy by recommending they be used only in combination with other drugs.Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) have since become the global standard treatment. However, partial resistance to artemisinin-based drugs has now been confirmed or suspected in at least eight African countries, and several of the drugs used in combination with artemisinin are also showing declining efficacy. Emerging therapies in late-stage development could help address these growing challenges.In fall 2025, Novartis announced positive Phase 3 results for a novel, non-artemisinin combination malaria therapy developed with the Medicines for Malaria Venture. Delivered as a once-daily packet of oral granules taken over three days, the therapy was found to be highly effective against multiple forms of the malaria parasite and was also able to kill drug-resistant strains. If approved, it would represent the first major innovation in malaria treatment since ACTs.Another promising approach in late-stage development is triple ACTs, which combine artemisinin-based drugs with two additional drugs to fend off the emergence of resistance. In fall 2025, the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, with funding from the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund, launched the first Phase 3 trial of a fixed-dose triple ACT in Rwanda. Taken once daily for three days, the therapy is designed to be affordable, easy-to-administer, and suitable across age groups, supporting adherence and reducing the risk of incomplete treatment, a key driver of resistance.  Historical lessons and new frontiers in vector control tools to tackle insecticide resistance Beyond parasite resistance, widespread insecticide resistance in mosquito vectors—dating back to the 1950s—has reduced the impact of existing vector control tools. The widespread uptake of insecticide-treated bednets helped drastically reduce malaria cases in Africa over recent decades, but most nets deployed since 2000 relied on pyrethroid insecticides. Resistance to pyrethroids is now widespread.In response, the World Health Organization recommended the first next-generation insecticide-treated nets in 2017. Since then, global partners, including the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, PATH, and the Gates Foundation, have collaborated to deploy more than 56 million of these new-generation nets, which have been shown to significantly improve malaria control outcomes.Additional innovations in the pipeline could complement these next-generation bednets. One promising group of tools is endectocides, or medicines taken by humans that kill mosquitoes when they bite. Ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug long used in mass drug administration campaigns for neglected tropical diseases, is the most studied endectocide to date. A 2025 study led by the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, and the Manhiça Health Research Center found that mass administration of ivermectin reduced new malaria infections by 26 percent when implemented alongside standard vector control measures. Unlike bednets or indoor residual spraying, which are limited to certain places or times of day, endectocides can protect people from malaria wherever they are.Early-stage research is also exploring gene drive technology, which genetically modifies mosquito populations to reduce their ability to transmit malaria. Target Malaria is investigating several gene drive approaches, including one of its most promising strategies: modifying male mosquitoes to carry a gene that causes some females to become sterile. Another approach involves genetically modifying males to produce predominantly male offspring, which can decrease mosquito numbers over time and reduce parasite transmission, since only female mosquitoes bite and transmit malaria. While still early in development, these tools could one day offer a transformative way to control mosquito populations.Drug and insecticide resistance represent some of the most urgent threats to the global fight against malaria, but they are not insurmountable. History shows that sustained innovation can blunt the impact of emerging resistance and help restore progress. Increased investment in new tools, alongside global coordination to ensure rapid and equitable deployment, will be essential to accelerating progress against malaria in the years ahead.