Events

Kick-off Meeting
Copenhagen March 2007

On the 28th of March 2008, the 13 partners of the European Malaria Vaccine Development Association gathered for the first EMVDA meeting at the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The First External Scientific Advisory Committee and Steering Committee Meeting
Edinburgh September 2007

External Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC) and Steering Committee meetings were held in Edinburgh 3-5 September 2007. ESAC was impressed by the progress made during the first nine months of the project. ESAC was pleased to see that the Growth Inhibition Assay platform had been established and was already producing comparative data to inform the selection of candidates for GMP production and clinical evaluation. ESAC strongly recommended that the comparative assay platforms be strengthened and rigorously applied to assist in candidate down-selection. To this end ESAC recommended that other assays, including ELISA, Immuno Fluorescent Antibody Assay and those measuring parasite growth in the presence of antibody and monocytes continue to be standardised and used for candidate evaluation, and that a T cell assay work package be established.

ESAC recommended that partners included other adjuvant formulations in collaboration with Infectious Disease Research Institute, Seattle, USA through the WHO Global Adjuvant Platform.

ESAC evaluated three applications submitted by consortium participants requesting support for GMP production and clinical evaluation. ESAC recommended one project and encouraged the two others to resubmit with additional information at the next internal call.

The Steering Committee, based on the ESAC recommendation, approved support be given to a vaccine approach using an adenovirus/MVA prime/boost approach from University of Oxford. Funding was recommended for GMP production and clinical trial phase I and phase IIa, contingent on safety demonstration with TRAP AdCh63 phase I in clinical trial, and contingent upon budgetary constraints of the entire EMVDA programme, including plans to support two additional candidates.

First EMVDA Annual Research Conference
Veyrier du Lac March 2008

The first Annual Conference was held 3rd – 4th March 2008 at Fondation Mérieux in Veyrier du Lac, France. The organising committee arranged the conference, accommodation and assisted the programme committee in developing the agenda, including the invitation of external speakers, who made thought provoking contributions to the proceedings. Conference proceedings were attended by ESAC and included a presentation of progress made in all work packages and plans for the upcoming period.
The Annual Conference was followed by ESAC and Steering Committee meetings, respectively.

Second External Scientific Advisory Committee and Steering Committee Meeting
Veyrier du Lac March 2008

The second ESAC and Steering Committee meetings were held on the 4th and 5th March 2008, respectively.
The Steering Committee approved an external call for selecting new potential malaria vaccine candidates to enter into EMVDA. The purpose of the call, which is to be launched in April 2008, is to invite the scientific community to submit proposals on the clinical testing of malaria blood stage candidate vaccines.

Approval was also given for the launch of the second and final internal call for one or two vaccine candidates of the consortium partners to enter into GMP production and phase Ia clinical trial in April 2009 with evaluation taking place in September 2009.