Longley Lab: Global Health Immunology

Malaria remains a significant global public health problem. In Australia’s neighbouring region, the parasite species Plasmodium vivax is a major challenge for elimination. This is due to a hidden life-cycle stage in the liver that results in relapses of infection. To achieve elimination, it is crucial to develop innovative new prevention and surveillance tools with this biology in mind.
 
Our lab aims to leverage naturally acquired immune responses against Plasmodium vivax and other parasites for both novel surveillance tools and development of vaccines. Infections can induce robust immune responses, and these can be utilised as markers of exposure and/or markers of immunity to disease. For example, we have demonstrated the power of serology to uncover the hidden liver-stage reservoir in Plasmodium vivax – the first diagnostic test that can do so.
 
We aim to build upon this work by translating these novel tools to generate evidence of impact and to drive implementation through development of novel point-of-care serological tests. We aim to expand our work to other Plasmodium parasites and other pathogens, to generate harmonised approaches for integrated disease surveillance. We will apply innovative approaches to characterise Plasmodium-specific functional immunity and immune memory to identify candidate vaccine antigens and inform novel approaches for vaccine development.

Our bold mission is to contribute to accelerated malaria elimination in our region and beyond. We aim to do this by utilising our unique expertise and international collaborations to make new discoveries and drive implementation of novel tools for malaria. We strive to extend application of these approaches to other infectious diseases of global health importance, especially other climate-sensitive infectious diseases.

Along with the Mueller Lab, a key recent finding of our laboratory has been the development of a new tool to identify hidden malaria parasites (Longley, White … Mueller 2020 Nature Medicine). Our novel strategy makes use of antibody markers of exposure and allows us to identify people with hidden parasites in their liver. We are working with local and international biotechnology companies to commercialise our research through development of a multi-analyte rapid diagnostic test. We have proposed a new public health intervention, serological testing and treatment, with our modelling indicating a potential 59-69% reduction in malaria transmission.