- About
- Strategic Plan
- Structure
- Governance
- Scientific divisions
- ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells
- ACRF Chemical Biology
- Advanced Technology and Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Blood Cells and Blood Cancer
- Clinical Translation
- Epigenetics and Development
- Immunology
- Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence
- Inflammation
- Personalised Oncology
- Population Health and Immunity
- Structural Biology
- Ubiquitin Signalling
- Laboratory operations
- Funding
- Annual reports
- Human research ethics
- Scientific integrity
- Institute life
- Career opportunities
- Business Development
- Partnering opportunities
- A complete cure for HBV
- A stable efficacious Toxoplasma vaccine
- Activating SMCHD1 to treat FSHD
- Improving vision outcomes in retinal detachment
- Intercepting inflammation with RIPK2 inhibitors
- Novel inhibitors for the treatment of lupus
- Novel malaria vaccine
- Precision epigenetics silencing SMCHD1 to treat Prader Willi Syndrome
- Rethinking CD52 a therapy for autoimmune disease
- Targeting minor class splicing
- Royalties distribution
- Start-up companies
- Partnering opportunities
- Collaborators
- Publications repository
- Awards
- Discoveries
- Centenary 2015
- History
- Contact us
- Research
- Diseases
- Cancer
- Development and ageing
- Immune health and infection
- Research fields
- Research technologies
- People
- Anne-Laure Puaux
- Associate Profesor Ian Majewski
- Associate Professor Aaron Jex
- Associate Professor Alyssa Barry
- Associate Professor Andrew Webb
- Associate Professor Chris Tonkin
- Associate Professor Daniel Gray
- Associate Professor Diana Hansen
- Associate Professor Edwin Hawkins
- Associate Professor Emma Josefsson
- Associate Professor Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Associate Professor Grant Dewson
- Associate Professor Isabelle Lucet
- Associate Professor James Murphy
- Associate Professor James Vince
- Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din
- Associate Professor Jeanne Tie
- Associate Professor Jeff Babon
- Associate Professor Joan Heath
- Associate Professor Justin Boddey
- Associate Professor Kate Sutherland
- Associate Professor Leanne Robinson
- Associate Professor Marco Herold Marco Herold
- Associate Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat
- Associate Professor Matthew Ritchie
- Associate Professor Melissa Davis
- Associate Professor Misty Jenkins
- Associate Professor Nawaf Yassi
- Associate Professor Oliver Sieber
- Associate Professor Peter Czabotar
- Associate Professor Rachel Wong
- Associate Professor Rhys Allan
- Associate Professor Rosie Watson
- Associate Professor Ruth Kluck
- Associate Professor Sandra Nicholson
- Associate Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Associate Professor Seth Masters
- Associate Professor Sumitra Ananda
- Associate Professor Tim Thomas
- Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham
- Associate Professor Wei Shi
- Catherine Parker
- Chela Niall
- Deborah Carr
- Dr Alisa Glukhova
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Ashley Ng
- Dr Ben Tran
- Dr Bernhard Lechtenberg
- Dr Brad Sleebs
- Dr Drew Berry
- Dr Gemma Kelly
- Dr Gwo Yaw Ho
- Dr Hui-Li Wong
- Dr Jacqui Gulbis
- Dr Joanna Groom
- Dr John Wentworth
- Dr Kelly Rogers
- Dr Lucy Gately
- Dr Margaret Lee
- Dr Mary Ann Anderson
- Dr Maryam Rashidi
- Dr Matthew Call
- Dr Melissa Call
- Dr Philippe Bouillet
- Dr Rebecca Feltham
- Dr Samir Taoudi
- Dr Shalin Naik
- Dr Sheau Wen Lok
- Dr Simon Chatfield
- Dr Tracy Putoczki
- Guillaume Lessene
- Helene Martin
- Joh Kirby
- Kaye Wycherley
- Keely Bumsted O'Brien
- Mr Joel Chibert
- Mr Simon Monard
- Mr Steve Droste
- Ms Carolyn MacDonald
- Professor Alan Cowman
- Professor Andreas Strasser
- Professor Andrew Lew
- Professor Andrew Roberts
- Professor Anne Voss
- Professor Clare Scott
- Professor David Huang
- Professor David Komander
- Professor David Vaux
- Professor Doug Hilton
- Professor Gabrielle Belz
- Professor Geoff Lindeman
- Professor Gordon Smyth
- Professor Ian Wicks
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Professor Jane Visvader
- Professor Jerry Adams
- Professor John Silke
- Professor Ken Shortman
- Professor Leonard C Harrison
- Professor Lynn Corcoran
- Professor Marc Pellegrini
- Professor Marnie Blewitt
- Professor Melanie Bahlo
- Professor Mike Lawrence
- Professor Nicos Nicola
- Professor Peter Colman
- Professor Peter Gibbs
- Professor Phil Hodgkin
- Professor Stephen Nutt
- Professor Suzanne Cory
- Professor Terry Speed
- Professor Tony Burgess
- Professor Tony Papenfuss
- Professor Warren Alexander
- Diseases
- Education
- PhD
- Honours
- Masters
- Undergraduate
- Student research projects
- A new regulator of stemness to create dendritic cell factories for immunotherapy
- Advanced methods for genomic rearrangement detection
- Control of cytokine signaling by SOCS1
- Defining the protein modifications associated with respiratory disease
- Delineating the pathways driving cancer development and therapy resistance
- Developing a new drug that targets plasmacytoid dendritic cells for the treatment of lupus
- Development and mechanism of action of novel antimalarials
- Development of a novel particle-based malaria vaccine
- Development of tau-specific therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies
- Discovering novel therapies for major human pathogens
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Essential role of glycobiology in malaria parasites
- Evolution of haematopoiesis in vertebrates
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Identifying novel treatment options for ovarian carcinosarcoma
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigating the role of mutant p53 in cancer
- Microbiome strain-level analysis using long read sequencing
- Minimising rheumatic adverse events of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy
- Modelling spatial and demographic heterogeneity of malaria transmission risk
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Predicting the effect of non-coding structural variants in cancer
- Structural basis of catenin-independent Wnt signalling
- Structure and biology of proteins essential for Toxoplasma parasite invasion
- T lymphocytes: how memories are made
- TICKER: A cell history recorder for longitudinal patient monitoring
- Targeting host pathways to develop new broad-spectrum antiviral drugs
- Targeting post-translational modifications to disrupting the function of secreted proteins
- Targeting the epigenome to rewire pro-allergic T cells
- Targeting the immune microenvironment to treat KRAS-mutant adenocarcinoma
- The E3 ubiquitin ligase Parkin and mitophagy in Parkinson’s disease
- The molecular controls on dendritic cell development
- Understanding malaria infection dynamics
- Understanding the genetics of neutrophil maturation
- Understanding the neuroimmune regulation of innate immunity
- Understanding the proteins that regulate programmed cell death at the molecular level
- Using cutting-edge single cell tools to understand the origins of cancer
- When healthy cells turn bad: how immune responses can transition to lymphoma
- School resources
- Frequently asked questions
- Student profiles
- Abebe Fola
- Andrew Baldi
- Anna Gabrielyan
- Bridget Dorizzi
- Casey Ah-Cann
- Catia Pierotti
- Emma Nolan
- Huon Wong
- Jing Deng
- Joy Liu
- Kaiseal Sarson-Lawrence
- Komal Patel
- Lilly Backshell
- Megan Kent
- Naomi Jones
- Rebecca Delconte
- Roberto Bonelli
- Rune Larsen
- Runyu Mao
- Sarah Garner
- Simona Seizova
- Wayne Cawthorne
- Wil Lehmann
- Miles Horton
- Alexandra Gurzau
- Student achievements
- Student association
- News
- Donate
- Online donation
- Ways to support
- Support outcomes
- Supporter stories
- Rotarians against breast cancer
- A partnership to improve treatments for cancer patients
- 20 years of cancer research support from the Helpman family
- A generous gift from a cancer survivor
- A gift to support excellence in Australian medical research
- An enduring friendship
- Anonymous donor helps bridge the 'valley of death'
- Renewed support for HIV eradication project
- Searching for solutions to muscular dystrophy
- Supporting research into better treatments for colon cancer
- Taking a single cell focus with the DROP-seq
- WEHI.TV
First malaria-human contact mapped with Nobel Prize-winning technology
28 June 2018
Institute scientists have taken a significant step toward developing a new vaccine for malaria, revealing for the first time an ‘atomic-scale’ blueprint of how the parasite invades human cells.
Using the Nobel Prize-winning technology cryo-EM (cryo-electron microscopy), the researchers mapped the previously hidden first contact between Plasmodium vivax malaria parasites and young red blood cells they invade to begin the parasites’ spread throughout the body. The discovery was published today in Nature.
Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham and Dr Jakub Gruszczyk – in collaboration with Dr Rick Huang and Dr Zhiheng Yu at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US) – solved the mystery of the molecular machinery the parasite uses to latch on to red blood cells.
This essential step in the malaria lifecycle is the beginning of the classical symptoms associated with malaria – fever, chills, malaise, diarrhoea and vomiting – which can last weeks or even longer.
Cryo-EM provides vaccine key
Earlier this year, the team discovered P. vivax parasites use the human transferrin receptor to gain access to red blood cells, a study they published in Science. Now, with the aid of revolutionary cryo-EM technology, Associate Professor Tham said the team was able to overcome previous technical challenges to visualise the interaction at an atomic level.
“We’ve now mapped, down to the atomic level, exactly how the parasite interacts with the human transferrin receptor,” Associate Professor Tham said.
“This is critical for taking our original finding to the next stage – developing potential new antimalarial drugs and vaccines. Cryo-EM is really opening doors for researchers to visualise structures that were previously too large and complex to ‘solve’ before.”
for entry into human reticulocytes. Image generated using
wehi.tv real-time interactive, animated molecular
world visualisation system. Credit: Justin Muir,
Dr Drew Berry
P. vivax is the most widespread malaria parasite worldwide, and the predominant cause of malaria in the vast majority of countries outside Africa. Because of its propensity to ‘hide’ undetected by the immune system in a person’s liver, it is also the number one parasite responsible for recurrent malaria infections.
Guided by the 3D map, Associate Professor Tham said the team was able to tease out the precise details of the parasite-host interaction, identifying its most vulnerable spots.
“It’s basically a design challenge. P. vivax parasites are incredibly diverse – which is challenging for vaccine development. We have now identified the molecular machinery that would be the best target for an antimalarial vaccine effective against the widest range of P. vivax parasites,” she said.
“With this unprecedented level of detail, we can now begin to design new therapies that specifically target and disrupt the parasite’s invasion machinery, preventing malaria parasites from hijacking human red blood cells to spread through the blood and, ultimately, be transmitted to others.”
Exploiting weak spots
Dr Gruszczyk said the team also ‘solved’ how antimalarial antibodies bind to and block P. vivax parasites to stop them from invading red blood cells, using X-ray crystallography facilities at the Australian Synchrotron.
“With this crystal map, we have identified additional ‘weak spots’ that could be exploited as therapeutic targets. The information allows us to go back to the parasite and pull out the part of the protein that will make the best possible vaccine,” Dr Gruszczyk said.
The research was supported by the Australian Research Council, Speedy Innovation Grant, National Health and Medical Research Council, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Wellcome Trust, Drakensberg Trust and the Victorian Government.
Media enquiries
M: +61 475 751 811
E: communityrelations@wehi.edu.au
Super Content:
Want to hear about our latest discoveries? Subscribe to our supporter newsletter, Illuminate.
We have developed the first malaria vaccine that can be tailored to match many different strains of malaria.
We are a member of the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN), an international collaborative network working towards eliminating malaria in the Asia-Pacific region.