A Mosquito Pick-and-Place System for PfSPZ-based Malaria Vaccine Production.

ABSTRACT: The treatment of malaria is a global health challenge that stands to benefit from the widespread introduction of a vaccine for the disease. A method has been developed to create a live organism vaccine using the sporozoites (SPZ) of the parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf), which are concentrated in the salivary glands of infected mosquitoes. Current manual dissection methods to obtain these PfSPZ are not optimally efficient for large-scale vaccine production. We propose an improved dissection procedure and a mechanical fixture that increases the rate of mosquito dissection and helps to deskill this stage of the production process. We further demonstrate the automation of a key step in this production process, the picking and placing of mosquitoes from a staging apparatus into a diss

SUBMITTER: Phalen H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7978227 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature