For Joe Cohen, a GlaxoSmithKline research scientist who hasspent 24 years trying to create the world's first malaria vaccine, Tuesday,October 18, 2011 goes down as a fabulous day.
"There were many ups and downs, and moments over theyears when we thought 'Can we do it? Should we continue? Or is it really justtoo tough?," he told Reuters, as data showing the success of his RTS,Svaccine were unveiled at an international conference on malaria.
"But today I feel fabulous. This is a dream of anyscientist -- to see your life's work actually translated into a medicine ...that can have this great impact on peoples' lives. How lucky am I?"
Final stage clinical trial data on RTS,S, also known asMosquirix, showed it halved the risk of African children getting malaria,making it likely to become the world's first successful vaccine against thedeadly disease.
While scientists say it is no "silver bullet" andwill not end the mosquito-borne infection on its own, it is being hailed as acrucial weapon in the fight against malaria and one that could speed the pathto eventual worldwide eradication.
Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva ofmosquitoes. It kills more than 780,000 people per year, most of them babies orvery young children in Africa.
Cohen's vaccine goes to work at the point when the parasiteenters the human bloodstream after a mosquito bite. By stimulating an immune response,it can prevent the parasite from maturing and multiplying in the liver.
Without that immune response, the parasite re-enters thebloodstream and infects red blood cells, leading to fever, body aches and, insome cases, death.
Although Cohen's scientific work has been largely inBelgium, where he runs a GSK laboratory, the final-stage trials of RTS,S wereconducted in Africa, where malaria hits hardest.
With GSK working in partnership with the non-profit PATHMalaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), the trials became Africa's largest-evermedical experiment as the vaccine was tested in around 16,000 children acrossseven countries.
Cohen said that if all goes to plan, RTS,S could be licensedand rolled out by 2015.
SOUL SEARCHING
As he looks back at the vaccine's long, slow development,the bearded 68-year-old molecular biologist laughs at how naive he was when hefirst agreed to take on the task.
It was April 1, 1987 when his boss at the drug company, thencalled Smith, Kline & French, asked him to be head of the malaria vaccineresearch program, just after an early-stage experimental vaccine and failed atest.
"Unfortunately, it was not a great success. Only onevolunteer out of the several that were vaccinated was actually protected. So,after quite a bit of optimism, there was then quite a bit of soulsearching," Cohen said.
"I did not actually know much about malaria, apart fromabout the enormous medical burden it represented. But I felt I was taking on anenormous scientific challenge, and that was exciting for a relatively youngscientist."
Having come from academia and post-doctorate studies intowhat he said were "sometimes esoteric questions" of molecularbiology, he was also attracted by the prospect of doing something "verymeaningful" in terms of global health.
Getting on for a quarter of a century later, Cohen said hehad "never dreamed it would take this long."
He was also careful to underline that this was a first step,as well as a world first. GSK, MVI and several other research groups and drugfirms are already working on next generation vaccines and on other ways ofmaking malaria shots they hope will better the roughly 50 percent success rateof RTS,S.
"The work is not over, that is for sure," Cohensaid.