EMBL Conference: BioMalPar XIX: biology and pathology of the malaria parasite

Malaria remains one of the most significant global public health challenges, with more than 200 million clinical cases worldwide each year. The lack of a vaccine that provides effective long-term protection and the continual emergence of drug-resistant malaria parasites emphasises the need for new control and prevention strategies.

This need for innovation has become even more apparent with the disruption of global malaria control programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic and potential reversal of gains made over the last few decades, highlighted through a marked increase in malaria deaths in 2020.

The generation of fundamental knowledge lies at the heart of developing new tools and innovations for malaria intervention. The malaria research community has a long history of being a highly collaborative field, reliant on diverse technologies, sharing of resources and dissemination of biological advances made. Now more than ever it is important that we take advantage of the full diversity of the malaria scientific community to share the advances of cross-disciplinary work that are vital for the translation of new ideas into public health impact.

BioMalPar XIX will showcase the multidisciplinary nature of malaria research with a programme that welcomes clinical malaria, epidemiological studies, immunology, and evolution and ecology alongside core BioMalPar topics. The programme focuses on early-mid career researchers to help mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which have been particularly acute for these stages.