UCC’s ‘malaria patch’ en route to Silicon Valley

A UCC researcher is to travel to Silicon Valley in California next week in a bid to commercialise a new malaria vaccine patch that has been developed in Cork.

Dr Anne Moore is to meet with venture capitalists and leading technology companies in the US, having led a research team that has developed a microneedle-based patch that results in increased vaccine-induced protection against malaria, using lower doses of vaccine in pre-clinical testing.

The microneedle-based patch also overcomes one of the main problems with this type of vaccine. This relates to overcoming pre-existing immunity to the vaccine which researchers claim, could have significant consequences for the costs and logistics of vaccination.