The development of resistance to the past and present anti-malarial drugs highlights the need for continued research to stay one step ahead. Human Challenge Trials (HCT) or Human Infection Models (HIM) are an extremely effective way of validating treatment efficacy using real-world symptomology studies. Both for prophylactic and curative treatment, challenge models have been developed in clinical trials by injection of infected red blood cells or direct inoculation with malaria sporozoites.

This workshop offers unique insights about Belgium’s pioneer malaria-VIS trials from the scientific community, the sponsor’s and the investigator’s perspective.

Speakers:

• Prof Jean-Pierre Van Geertruyden, MD, PhD, Full Professor, Global Health Institute, University of Antwerp
• Dr Farouk Chughlay, MD MMed FCCP Dip HIV, Medical Director: Experimental Medicine & Clinical Pharmacology, Medicines for Malaria Venture
• Dr Pieter-Jan Berghmans, MD, FBCPM, Investigator, SGS – CPU

The world has woken up to understand the disturbing impact of a global virus epidemic. Scientists have however been studying the risks for many years, trying to find novel ways to model and predict the spread of viruses. 

Prof. dr. Steven Abrams is an expert in the domain of infectious disease modeling. He works for the Global Health Institute and Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics at the universities of Antwerp and Hasselt, respectively.

He will share with us his first hand experiences including those on the current COVID-19 crisis, allowing us to better understand what the impact is on and what it means for biopharmaceutical research”.