Malaria remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, caused by Plasmodium parasites transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes. Our dedicated malaria transmission facility at LSHTM supports research into one of the most critical—and often overlooked—stages of malaria transmission: the parasite’s development within the mosquito.
While significant progress has been made in reducing cases and deaths since the early 2000s, recent years have seen a slowdown—and even setbacks—in control and elimination efforts. To drive renewed progress, new strategies and innovations are essential, alongside strong global collaboration. At our facility, human malaria parasites can be studied within the mosquito host, enabling detailed investigation of this key stage of the Plasmodium life cycle.
This facility is open to all members of the research community. We aim to facilitate research into compounds and vaccines that can block transmission, parasite genes essential for transmission, and parasite-mosquito interactions. Our facility will open up new avenues of research and innovation to accelerate our fight against this devastating disease.
Progress in malaria control and elimination has stalled, and existing control measures are increasingly under threat due to widespread insecticide, drug and diagnostic resistance. Most current antimalarials target the asexual stage of the parasite, reducing disease in individuals but often failing to block transmission. The mosquito-transmissible sexual stage parasites, the gametocytes, are largely insensitive to treatment, allowing the transmission of parasites to mosquitoes, perpetuating the spread of malaria.
Mosquito and liver parasite stages encounter natural population bottlenecks, resulting in reduced genetic complexity and offering important opportunities for intervention. Experimental studies of parasite transmission, mosquito-parasite interactions, and liver-stage infection are therefore essential for antimalarial drug discovery, vaccine development, and vector transmission research.
Successful malaria transmission research requires coordinated expertise across three biological systems: the parasite, the mosquito, and the mammalian host. The Human Malaria Transmission Facility (HMTF) brings these disciplines together in a single, highly specialised research environment, where experimental infections are standardised to ensure reproducibility and success.
HMTF primarily supports experimental infection of mosquitoes with Plasmodium falciparum laboratory strains, while also working with other human Plasmodium species and clinical isolates. The facility offers open access to members of the research community to facilitate experimentation, drug discovery, transmission-blocking studies, small-scale vaccine strain testing, and genetic analyses.
Driven by the needs of the researcher community, HMTF provides optimised standardised protocols, and can offer training in malaria transmission work. The facility is able to receive and test mutant parasite and mosquito lines, test the efficacy of transmission-blocking compounds and antibodies, perform genetic crosses of parasites, study any parasite stage - from gametocytes to the liver stage of the humanized mouse model, and supply biomaterials for multi-omic analyses.
Colin
Sutherland
Professor in Parasitology and Deputy Director for Science - MRL
Mojca
Kristan
Assistant Professor
Michael
Delves
Associate Professor
Lindsay
Stewart
Higher Scientific Officer
Mariana
Reis Wunderlich
Scientific Officer
Experimental endpoints
At our facility, we design and deliver studies to explore various stages of the malaria transmission cycle. Using Plasmodium gametocytes grown in vitro or obtained from clinical samples provided by the UK HSA Malaria Reference Laboratory, we infect our colonies of Anopheles mosquitoes via standard membrane feeding assays.
Mosquitoes are dissected at defined time points to enable robust comparison between treatment groups, with particular emphasis on key transmission stages including ookinetes, oocysts, and sporozoites.
Research focus
Our current work focuses on five key research areas, with flexibility to expand in response to the needs and interests of potential collaborators:
- Transmission-blocking interventions, including compounds and vaccines
- Parasite genetic modification, including knockout and conditional knockout lines, and their effects on transmission
- Drug resistance and parasite fitness, focusing on resistant phenotypes and parasites carrying gene deletions, and their impact on transmission
- Vector control and transmission interactions, examining the impact of insecticides, endectocides, and insecticide resistance mechanisms on parasite transmission
- Humanised mouse infection models, to support translational transmission studies.
In the image above: 1) Plasmodium falciparum ookinete 28 hours post-infective feed, stained using anti-Pfs 25 monoclonal antibodies. 2) Plasmodium falciparum oocysts 7 days post-infective feed, stained with 0.5% mercurochrome. 3) Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites 14 days post-infective feed, visualised with a phase contrast microscope.
We have developed research project ideas with the following collaborators:
- Burnet
- University of Cambridge
- Australian National University
- The Francis Crick Institute
- WEHI
- University of Warwick
- Wellcome Sanger Institute
- inStem
- Institut Pasteur
See our list of publications for details.
Contact us if you have any ideas that include malaria transmission work.
We are located in the LSHTM Keppel Street building. Our facility encompasses three specialised laboratories:
The insectary
We house various species and strains of Anopheles mosquitoes, including An. stephensi (SD500) and An. coluzzii (N’gousso). Our insectary maintains high-quality mosquito colonies, which are regularly monitored for the presence of unwanted pathogens. Depending on research needs, we are also able to establish and rear new mosquito colonies.
The CL3 Plasmodium culture lab
This CL3 laboratory is dedicated to the culture of P. falciparum in both its asexual and sexual stages. Our primary gametocyte-producing strain is NF54, but we also support testing different strains, including knockout/modified lines, and also work with clinical isolates of P. falciparum and other Plasmodium species which infect humans. We ensure our cultures are contamination-free by conducting routine Mycoplasma testing of our parasite lines.
In our facility we also use the "tipper" systems for automated culture of P. falciparum gametocytes to increase the throughput of malaria mosquito transmission experiments.
The CL3 transmission suite
Located on the 4th floor of the Keppel Street building, this suite offers a CL3 level of security, providing a controlled environment for conducting malaria transmission experiments.
