About

MVRU is a major unit of the Malaria Excellence Centre of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University. Founded in 2011 under the leadership of Dr. Jetsumon Sattabongkot, the MVRU has grown from 8 staff to over 30 currently. With full access to Mahidol University facilities and supporting infrastructure, including well equipped field laboratories in malaria endemic sites, MVRU has established itself as a leader in Plasmodium vivax research. The unit has attracted many international research supports aiming to drive malaria elimination.

MVRU’s mission is to accelerate malaria elimination through research. To achieve our goal, we strive to fill important knowledge gaps in P. vivax biology as well as to provide platforms for development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools. MVRU staff work both in the field and in the lab to discover, create, and validate new ways to fight malaria.

Working closely with community leaders in the endemic areas of Thailand and leading international scientists, we have built a strong collaborative network to support frontier research in vivax malaria. Population-based studies (social and epidemiological) have been a major part of our research to advance understanding of risk factors, trends of infection, and impacts of different interventions.

Fresh P. vivax parasites from patients and asymptomatic carriers allows investigation of the biology of all stages of the parasite. With our high-quality colonies of Anopheline mosquitos, we can study malaria transmission in the well-controlled laboratory settings. Our high-capacity production of female An. dirus also enables studies and drug screening against the elusive liver-stage parasites including hypnozoites.

Within the next 5 years, we will put our best effort to provide a better understanding malaria transmission, develop new transmission blocking vaccines for P. vivax, evaluate novel interventions, validate new diagnostic tools, and close key knowledge gaps in P. vivax biology related to the parasite dormancy and population reservoir.