Joseph Vinetz
Yale University, CT·Public Health & Epidemiology
Malaria persists in the Peruvian Amazon despite repeated elimination campaigns. Loreto, a region whose capital is Iquitos, has 95% of Peru's malaria cases and about a quarter of all cases in the Americas.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
malaria
Plasmodium
asymptomatic infection
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Estimate how much of each person's malaria (re)infection risk in residual-transmission areas of the Peruvian Amazon comes from human genetics versus changeable social, behavioral and environmental factors, and define risk profiles.
- Test whether malaria parasite carriers connect remote and nearby river and urban sites, sustaining transmission, using network analysis of infection data.
- Track malaria trends and locate hotspots in remote Indigenous communities by combining field-deployable molecular diagnosis with models of repeated antibody measurements.
More about the research
Peru's plans rely on finding cases, field-ready molecular tests and mosquito control. Two situations still block elimination. The first is "residual" transmission, where infections continue at low levels despite current interventions. The second is intense, localized transmission in hard-to-reach Indigenous communities. Cases have risen sharply over the past two years, and more infections are asymptomatic, meaning people carry parasites without feeling sick.
Why it matters
The Amazon accounts for about one-third of the more than 500,000 malaria cases reported each year in the Americas. Knowing who is most at risk and where infections spread from could help health authorities in Peru and elsewhere in South America target elimination efforts more precisely. The work may also help guard against malaria being reintroduced into the United States.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Cristian Koepfli
University of Notre Dame, IN·Public Health & Epidemiology
Sequence more than 1,000 Plasmodium falciparum and more than 800 Plasmodium vivax samples collected since 2019 in the Ethiopian highlands to distinguish imported from locally transmitted infections and test whether imported parasites spread locally.
Jessica Briggs
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Genotype every Plasmodium falciparum infection in a Ugandan birth cohort of 924 children to estimate the molecular force of infection (the rate at which new parasite clones establish infection) and compare children given DP chemoprevention with those given placebo.
Bryan Greenhouse
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Determine how a person's existing anti-PfEMP1 antibodies and the var genes a parasite first switches on together shape the outcome of new Plasmodium falciparum infections, using plasma, RNA sequencing and clinical records from a Ugandan cohort.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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