The traditional approach to developing vaccines against infectious diseases is rudimentary compared to the complexity of malaria. While many viruses or bacteria have simpler genomes with just a handful of proteins for our immune systems to target, the malaria parasite is more complex with multiple life-cycle stages, its genome encodes thousands of proteins and it has expert ways of evading immunity.
Fortunately, molecular technology has advanced dramatically in recent years. When the first genome of a malaria-causing parasite was published in 2002, researchers finally had a detailed picture of what they were up against. “That’s when we understood,” says Dr. Osier. “We’d been counting maybe 10, 20 proteins. There are actually over 5,000 proteins there. But you couldn’t see them before, because you didn’t have the tools.”
That complexity explains why, even as the malaria field has made meaningful progress, so much remains to be done. Two vaccines, RTS,S and R21, have been approved in the past few years and are reaching children across Africa, but both target just one stage of the parasite’s complex life cycle. Dr. Osier’s work aims to go further, using newer technologies and sophisticated immunological analyses to design a vaccine that targets a different stage, potentially offering stronger and longer-lasting protection.
Life lessons that strengthen resolve
Portrait of Dr. Faith Osier at Imperial College London.
@Gates Archive/Sharion Mullings
Developing a vaccine can take years, even decades, with obstacles and failures along the way. But Dr. Osier takes the long view. “There are setbacks in work, but there are also setbacks in life,” she says. This has been true in her own life—particularly her experience of enduring multiple miscarriages. “That was a big setback and helped me to appreciate that life happens,” she says. “Life doesn’t respect that you’re a doctor or that you’re researching this great disease. Life is just life, and you must pick yourself up and keep moving every time you fall down.”
Dr. Osier’s scientific approach is to match the complexity of the disease. She started by focusing on an undeniable truth she observed in the rural hospital: The adult wards weren’t full of malaria patients.
“In the exact same house, a child will be at death’s door, but the mom and dad are completely fine,” she says. “That means immunity is possible.”
Understanding how that immunity works has been a yearslong undertaking. “The malaria parasite is like a massive Rubik’s Cube,” she says. “There are millions of bystander antibodies just hanging out, doing nothing. But there are a few that really do the business.”
Her team’s breakthrough advances have come from using cutting-edge protein microarray technology to pinpoint exactly which antibodies are doing the work. That led to several years of work on identifying antigens that were potential vaccine candidates.
When setbacks lead to a new strategy
Portrait of Dr. Osier in London, UK.
@Gates Archive/Sharion Mullings
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, hampering Dr. Osier’s research. Even worse, Africa was among the last parts of the world to get access to COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed and manufactured in high-income countries. “During the pandemic, we had vaccine nationalism where rich countries were stockpiling vaccines,” Dr. Osier says. She began to ask herself, “How could I use my knowledge more broadly beyond malaria?” She applied for and was awarded a grant to build vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa, for multiple diseases.
Dr. Osier’s story underscores a critical truth in global health: The people closest to the problem are the ones best equipped to solve it. She knows this better than anyone. While pursuing her doctorate, she learned about the variability of malaria across the African continent. “Malaria doesn’t have the same face everywhere,” she says, “so when trying to interpret your antibody response, you have to take into account that variability.” She believes strongly in local R&D and equipping local scientists with the skills they need to respond to an epidemic or outbreak in their own community.
Dr. Faith Osier works in the laboratory of the Sir Alexander Fleming Building at Imperial College London in London, UK.
@Gates Archive/Sharion Mullings
Dr. Osier envisions an “army of African scientists” working in concert to advance health innovation across the continent. “You need many people working on the same problem, pushing against each other, and that’s when a solution will emerge,” she says. “We need the Africa to be teeming with scientists.”
