Rankin turns lens to scientists battling one of the deadliest diseases

His star-studded portfolio features cultural giants including Madonna, David Bowie and the late Queen Elizabeth II. Now, Rankin’s lens has turned to a different kind of global icon — scientists battling one of the world’s most deadly diseases. The legendary photographer has captured portraits of three leading malaria researchers to put a spotlight on efforts to eliminate the disease and save millions of lives.

His latest subjects include a British immunologist who is working on a second-generation jab to protect against the most severe form of malaria, and the vice president of a not-for-profit making antimalarial drugs available to those who desperately need them. Rankin also photographed a medical entomologist (specialising in the study of insects) based at the at The Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania. The Express observed Ifakara’s vital work on a visit to the country’s largest city, Dar Es Salaam, last year.

The photoshoot, organised by charity Malaria No More UK, brought together British scientists and their overseas colleagues to highlight the UK’s leading role in global efforts to defeat the disease. It comes at a crucial moment when the field is facing a perfect storm including resistance to existing tools and sweeping funding cuts for global health initiatives.

Gareth Jenkins, the charity’s managing director, says the UK has played a leading role in the fight against malaria, which “represents what we do best as a country in terms of science and innovation”.

But he adds: “I don’t think we celebrate it nearly enough. Our network of world-leading universities and top pharmaceutical companies, paired with partnerships with experts around the world has meant we’ve led the way on developing new innovations against malaria.

“It’s this pursuit of science that has built a pipeline of tools that’s stronger than ever before — saving countless children, unlocking brighter, more secure futures and helping to ensure the next generation grows free from malaria’s threats.”

Campaigners are also making the case that research into global diseases also has “ripple effects” for high-income countries — for example, an ingredient developed to boost the effectiveness of a malaria vaccine (the AS01 adjuvant) is now used in vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus and tuberculosis.

Mr Jenkins added: “It’s more important than ever that the Government does everything in its power to protect this status as the fight against malaria faces a perfect storm of threats. This will help to save millions of children’s lives around the world as well as directly bolstering the health security and economic stability of people here in the UK.” Here, three of Rankin’s scientists tell us about their vital work.

The Malaria Modifier

– Dr Dickson Wilson Lwetoijera is principal research scientist at The Ifakara Health Institute and co-director of the Transmission Zero Programme

I want to end this disease for good, consign it to history so that children once at risk might one day tell their grandchildren of a disease of the past. This is what has driven my work for nearly twenty years.

I’m a malaria scientist from Tanzania, so I’ve lived with the disease around me my whole life. I’ve had friends and family catch it, and I’ve had it myself — it’s like flu times one hundred. Fever and pain like you wouldn’t believe.

My work focuses on making malaria-carrying mosquitoes resistant to the malaria parasite — so they simply can’t pass it on. We do this using a technology called ‘gene drive’, which allows modified mosquitoes to pass that resistance to their offspring when they breed.

Over time, this could mean wild mosquito populations lose the ability to transmit the disease entirely — keeping more children safe from a potentially deadly bite.

This is all still being studied in a controlled setting, but if it’s successful, it really could be a game-changer that helps end the disease once and for all.

People talk about malaria being as old as the dinosaurs, so it’s impossible to exaggerate what a huge achievement that would be. For me, it’d be up there with landing on the moon!

And believe it or not, me and my team do all of this from a shipping container. Not just any shipping container of course, but one that hosts a state-of-the-art lab, specially adapted to help us carry out our research.

Partnership is central to our approach. I’m proud to have worked for years with scientists from the UK at Imperial College London and within Tanzania. I also studied science in Liverpool, as did quite a few of my colleagues.

We also work closely with local communities here in Tanzania to explain how this complex science works and answer questions about its potential impact. With so much at stake, and increasing resistance to existing tools, it‘s the big bets in next-generation science that will end this disease.

I still get a thrill from walking into work every day that I could be part of the final chapter in the story of malaria. There’s a long way to go, but we must not forget that working together, it can be done.

The Vamped-Up Vaccine Maker

– Professor Katie Ewer is second generation malaria programme lead at GSK

It’s a thrilling time to be a malaria scientist. Breakthrough moments are rare but I feel like we’re seeing more of them. I’ve been working in this field since 2008, and we’ve made great progress, but it takes time — malaria is very complex.

It took the world more than 35 years to have any vaccines available. That’s a long time considering a child still dies from malaria every minute and it’s thought to be one of the oldest and deadliest diseases on the planet.

But excitingly, progress is speeding up and we’ve seen some of the greatest leaps in understanding in recent years.

There are now two vaccines reaching tens of millions of children in more than 20 countries in Africa, something I’m immensely proud of. But we have to go further.

The malaria parasite passes through the body in several stages. Existing vaccines tackle it at the early phase, after you get bitten by a mosquito. At GSK, we’re currently in the early stages of developing new options to target the later stage when young children become most unwell, aiming to add another layer of protection.

A big part of what makes this possible is scientists at the top of their game working together. And UK scientists have been really important in leading the research behind both current vaccines — at GSK where I work now and at the University of Oxford, where I worked earlier in my career.

And the work we do benefits the UK public too. For example, some of the science that went into the malaria vaccines has been used for vaccines to protect people from other diseases.

There’s still a long road ahead for malaria elimination but with vaccines now reaching children I do sometimes have to pinch myself. The breakthrough moments keep coming — and I’m not ready to stop chasing them.

My dream is that vaccines, as part of a toolbox of innovations, help stop malaria for good so that all children have the same to reach their full potential, no matter what.

The Drug Developer

– Cristina Donini is executive vice president of research and development at Medicines for Malaria Venture

My journey with malaria science began when I volunteered with a small charity in Kenya. It completely opened my eyes to the day-to-day reality of what people were facing in countries without the healthcare systems that I grew up with, with a whole range of additional diseases to contend with.

Ultimately, that path led me to Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), where I am now and where my job is to help develop the next generation of drugs to protect and save people from malaria.

I’m currently trying to solve a common problem. Anyone who’s ever taken a course of antibiotics will appreciate how easy it can be to miss one of the pills in the treatment course. Well, it’s a very similar issue we face for people who live in countries with malaria when it comes to treating the disease.

It can be difficult to make sure people take the full course of medicine and that can lead to repeat cases of malaria when they may have thought it had gone.

This is one of the main challenges I tackle at MMV. And in fact, earlier this year a new drug we helped to develop was introduced for young children and adults in Brazil which acts as a single dose preventing relapse.

We’re also working on a drug which can be injected to provide longer lasting protection against malaria, instead of a lengthy and repeated course.

Readers probably don’t realise, but the UK also plays a really important role in all of this. Our organisation works with many experts across lots of different countries and British-backed scientists are very often at the forefront of new breakthroughs.

And it’s really essential they keep doing so, along with other countries around the world, because the malaria parasite and the mosquitoes which spread it have adapted to evade the tools we’ve relied on for years to stop them.

It’s why today, despite years of progress, we’re seeing more and more people suffer from the disease and it’s a big reason why it’s one of the world’s oldest and deadliest killers. But I believe that today, if we back our scientists so we can stay a step ahead, it’s possible to end malaria for good.