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In collaboration with colleagues at LSHTM, INSTech, IRSS and MRTC, my PhD uses multiplex antibody detection assays to understand the acquisition of natural immunity to falciparum malaria in children under 5 receiving the RTS,S vaccine with or without SMC in Burkina Faso and Mali (RTS,S+SMC Study). Funded by GSK and PATH.

My research activities initially focused on Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax and P. knowlesi IgG seroprevalence studies using Luminex and ELISA in endemic and elimination settings. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I developed and transferred SARS-CoV-2 antibody assays to partner laboratories in Burkina Faso and Kenya (MALCOV), Sierra Leone (HWI), and The Gambia (COVADIS) funded by the LSHTM COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund. In collaboration with colleagues from the CDC, I performed assay harmonisations of SARS-CoV-2, malaria and NTD antigen panels for integrated multi-disease serosurveillance studies in Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Malawi (COMSA). 

I worked in collaboration with the EBOVAC laboratory in Kambia, Sierra Leone to employ malaria Luminex IgG assays at LSHTM to assess how previous malaria exposure affects a two-Dose Ad26.ZEBOV, MVA-BN-Filo Ebola vaccine regimen (EBOVAC Malaria Ancillary Study). The NTD assay was then transferred to the EBOVAC laboratory to assess the impact of exposure to malaria and helminth infections on the durability of the immune response to rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP and Ad26.ZEBOV/MVA-BN-Filo vaccines in Sierra Leone and Guinea (PREVAC-UP).

I worked on using multiplex cytokine and chemokine panels to investigate immune activation in Zambian women with female genital schistosomiasis, asymptomatic malaria in chimpanzees in Gabon, and to characterise disease signatures by age and disease severity in cerebral malaria patients from Ispat General Hospital in Rourkela, India. I also worked with colleagues at LSHTM and Ispat General Hospital employing luminex IgG assays to characterise PfGARP as a potential marker of protection from clinical malaria in uncomplicated and severe malaria patients in Rourkela.