The team is to receive $400,000 (€363,000) to investigate whether the “alfa-gal” sugar molecule, expressed by the malaria parasite, “Plasmodium”, should be part of a new vaccine against the disease.
The work is to begin in August with a pre-clinical trial with mice, Miguel Soares told Lusa News Agency.
In 2014, his team discovered, in an experiment with mice, that the sugar molecule is also found on the surface of a strain of “E.coli”, which exists in healthy human intestines and that generates a natural defence mechanism in the body against malaria.