Despite decades of attention, malaria remains one of the world's most persistent infectious threats—not because the problem is misunderstood, but because the tools available haven't kept pace with the parasite. Genetic resistance, antigenic variation, and Plasmodium's intracellular life cycle have limited what conventional vaccines and drugs can achieve.
We're marking a real milestone in our malaria program: the computational design phase of the Xjenza Malta Research Excellence Programme 2024 (REP-2024-064) is complete, with strong scientific validation behind it and a defined path toward experimental testing. Xjenza Malta formally reviewed our progress, and their continued engagement has been central to getting here.
At the core of this work is COMED Hooks—a rationally designed bispecific antibody built to engage both the parasite and the host cell simultaneously, blocking Plasmodium from entering red blood cells in the first place. It's a mechanism that sidesteps the limitations built into current vaccine and drug approaches. The computational framework behind it has since been published in Elsevier's Gene, and picked up by MalariaWorld, putting it in front of malaria researchers in 140 countries.
What's next is in vitro and in vivo validation, continuing with Xjenza Malta's support. The design work holds up computationally. Now it has to hold up in a living system—that's the phase where it starts becoming medicine.