Draper Group members attend the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) in Toronto
In November 2025 Simon, Angela, Jo, Sarah, Andrew and Fran attended the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) held in Toronto, Canada. This meeting is the premier international forum for the exchange of scientific advances in tropical medicine, hygiene and global health, and draws tropical medicine and global health professionals representing academia, foundations, government, not for profit organisations, non-governmental organisations, the private sector, military and private practice. World-class research findings, clinical updates and topical discussions about the hot-button global issues from the world’s brightest scientific experts and thought leaders are presented over five days.
Prior to the conference, Simon and Melissa Penny (The Kids Research Institute, Australia) co-chaired the 2025 Next-Generation Malaria Vaccine Development Stakeholders Engagement Meeting. This meeting brought together the malaria vaccine community (academics, researchers, developers, funders, and policymakers) to discuss i) challenges for malaria vaccine clinical trials; ii) optimising end-points for next-gen malaria vaccines; and iii) to update on plans for future stakeholder engagement and meetings. The event was supported by Dr Katharine Collins, Senior Program Officer – Global Health R&D at Open Philanthropy.
During the conference, Andrew presented a late breaker talk on the recent BIO-006 trial in Oxford: “Development of a novel human challenge model for relapsing Plasmodium vivax malaria”.
Sarah presented a talk on the VAC086 trial in The Gambia: “Characterisation of the immune responses induced by the blood-stage vaccine candidate RH5.2-VLP/Matrix-M alone and in combination with the licensed pre-erythrocytic vaccine R21/Matrix-M”.
And Angela presented a talk “Latest advances in blood-stage and multi-stage malaria vaccine trials” in a Symposium entitled “Advances in Multi-Stage Malaria Vaccines for Prevention and Elimination: Challenges and Opportunities” co-chaired by Simon and Melissa Penny.
Our collaborators and partners, including Dr Magloire Natama, Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro at the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS) in Burkina Faso; Dr Yekini Olatunji from the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and Dr Ruth Payne and Dr Kyra Holliday from the University of Sheffield in the UK, all gave presentations on our collaborative trials including VAC086, VAC087, VAC093 and BIO-002.
Sarah and Jo also presented posters highlighting recent work from the group on the BIO-001, BIO-002 and VAC089 clinical trials of the RH5.1, RH5.2-VLP and R78C / Matrix-M vaccine candidates for blood-stage P. falciparum.
Simon and Fran also spent the final day visiting friends and collaborators at a meeting held at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), affiliated with the University of Toronto.
It was fantastic to catch-up with so many friends, collaborators and colleagues from around the world, and also experience the snowy tropics of Toronto!
