Faith Osier

When will we have a malaria vaccine

This award helps to put African science and scientists firmly on the map. We can bring positive and meaningful change to our communities through effective research, innovation and leadership.

I inspire women in science all over the world, and more so in Africa.

I try to understand how adults in Africa learn to live in harmony with the parasite responsible for malaria, such that infections do not make them ill. This knowledge could help us design vaccines that would protect children, who can die as a result of a malaria infection.

As you move up it becomes harder because you’ll be distracted by dramas and sideshows, but remember that they’re not the main story.

When you come into a place, it is really important to see people who are achieving things,” Professor Osier said. “If you come into a place where people are dead wood, however brilliant you may be, you are going to become dead wood yourself.

The second angle of our research aims to understand how the immune system handles the complexity of the malaria parasite. For example, if it produces antibodies, we need to identify the parasite proteins to which the antibodies are binding and the mechanisms they are using. To do this, we probe the parasite with antibodies from people who have developed resistance to malaria parasite.

I had three late miscarriages and one early and that took a long while to recover from. Some women have children with serious disabilities.

I feel the urgency with dealing with these [infectious disease] problems because I have experienced them up close.

The journey towards the development of a malaria vaccine is bumpy. It involves understanding highly evolved parasites that can replicate while hidden within the cells of their hosts.

My average day has evolved over the years as I have graduated from being a junior to a more senior researcher. Earlier on, I’d spend a lot of time in the laboratory generating data and less time in the office reading scientific literature, analysing data and writing up my work.

I joined the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in 1998 as a junior doctor and was interested in training in paediatrics. It was here that I was introduced to research on malaria in general, and begun to understand that we know so little about this disease that has been with humans for such a long time.

The Wellcome Trust has been instrumental to getting me established as a credible African research scientist. I competed and won a training fellowship that supported my PhD studies. My current work is supported by an intermediate fellowship, and this has enabled me to compete successfully for an MRC/DFID African Research Leader award.

If you go to a region with a lot of malaria, you find that only the children get seriously sick and the adults are basically immune. I wanted to understand the process that makes adults immune to malaria.

whatever you have in your hand to do, if you give it your whole heart and all your energy, it will give you a lot of dividends.