James McCarthy, Deputy Head of Department

Research Overview

The use of Clinical Trials entailing deliberate infection of healthy human volunteers is recognized as a very useful approach to to improve understanding of how these infections make people sick, how to diagnose these infections, how to prevent them with vaccines and how to treat them with new medications. We have developed a unique clinical trial systems that entails deliberate infection of healthy volunteers with malaria parasites and other organisms (hookworms and Strep A) to improve knowledge of these infections and to test new diagnostics, vaccines and drugs.

A specific interest is using the malaria human challenge model to improve understanding of transmission of parasites from the human host to the mosquito by studying the transmission stage of the malaria parasite, the gametocyte.

Staff

Funding

  • NHMRC
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Medicines for Malaria Venture

Research Publications

  1. Watts RE, Odedra A, Marquart L, Webb L, Abd-Rahman AN, Cascales L, Chalon S, Rebelo M, Pava Z, Collins KA, Pasay C, Chen N, Peatey CL, Mohrle JJ, McCarthy JS. 2020. Safety and parasite clearance of artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum infection: A pilot and a randomised volunteer infection study in Australia. PLoS Med 17:e1003203.
  2. McCarthy JS, Donini C, Chalon S, Woodford J, Marquart L, Collins KA, Rozenberg FD, Fidock DA, Cherkaoui-Rbati MH, Gobeau N, Mohrle JJ. 2020. A phase 1, placebo controlled, randomised, single ascending dose study and a volunteer infection study to characterize the safety, pharmacokinetics and antimalarial activity of the Plasmodium phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase inhibitor MMV390048. Clin Infect Dis doi:10.1093/cid/ciaa368.
  3. Collins KA, Wang CY, Adams M, Mitchell H, Robinson GJ, Rampton M, Elliott S, Odedra A, Khoury D, Ballard E, Shelper TB, Lucantoni L, Avery VM, Chalon S, Moehrle JJ, McCarthy JS. 2020. A Plasmodium vivax experimental human infection model for evaluating efficacy of interventions. J Clin Invest 130:2920-2927.
  4. McCarthy JS, Smith B, Reid M, Berman J, Marquart L, Dobbin C, West L, Read LT, Dow GS. 2019. Blood Schizonticidal Activity and Safety of Tafenoquine When Administered as Chemoprophylaxis to Healthy, Nonimmune Participants Followed by Blood Stage Plasmodium falciparum Challenge: A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Phase 1b Study. Clin Infect Dis 69:480-486.
  5. Collins KA, Wang CY, Adams M, Mitchell H, Rampton M, Elliott S, Reuling IJ, Bousema T, Sauerwein R, Chalon S, Mohrle JJ, McCarthy JS. 2018. A controlled human malaria infection model enabling evaluation of transmission-blocking interventions. J Clin Invest 128:1551-1562.

Research Projects



Faculty Research Themes

Infection and Immunology



Key Contact

For further information about this research, please contact Professor James McCarthy

Department / Centre

Infectious Diseases

Unit / Centre

James McCarthy, Deputy Head of Department

MDHS Research library
Explore by researcher, school, project or topic.