Interview with MARCAD fellow Dr Drissa Coulibaly awarded IRIDA R01 Fellowship by the NIH/NIAID

Dr Drissa Coulibaly, a MARCAD postdoctoral fellow, has been awarded a grant on International Research in Infectious Diseases including AIDS (IRIDA) R01 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In this interview, Dr Coulibaly talked about his new five-year grant project, which, according to him, aimed to assess the Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) impact.

How do you feel after being awarded an IRIDA R01 fellowship?

I feel lucky and a bit fear.

Lucky because as a researcher, this is an achievement in my Personal Development Plan. I will set up a team; medical and pharmacy students will work on the project and develop their thesis.

My project will assess the impact of the seasonal malaria chemoprevention in fine-scale epidemiology and immunology.

A bit of fear because it is a big challenge.

What is the title of your project for this fellowship, and on what will it be focused?

My project title is The age-specific impact of seasonal malaria chemoprevention on malaria incidence, antibody responses, and parasite reservoirs in Malian children.

We will enroll 234 children aged from three months to 18 years old. Three Strata will be used: 3 months-5 years, 6-10 years and 11-18 years and 78 children in each. They will be followed passively and actively to detect malaria infection and malaria disease. We will measure the prevalence of malaria infection and anemia. The age-specific incidence of malaria will be measured. The parasite reservoir will be determined and mapped. All these efforts aimed to move toward malaria elimination.

Can you tell us a little more about your IRIDA R01 fellowship?

As already known, malaria inflicts a devastating toll on sub-Saharan Africa, killing each year thousands of persons, mostly children under five years. In high seasonal malaria transmission areas, several studies have shown a sharp decline in malaria infections through the use of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women and young children between the ages of three and fifty-nine months. Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) in these young children consists of treatment courses of Sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine given at monthly intervals during the malaria season to maintain therapeutic anti-malarial drug concentrations in the blood throughout the period of greatest malaria risk. Studies have shown changes in the ages of peak susceptibility to malaria, with older children more vulnerable to disease following the implementation of control strategies. In 2016, SMC was implemented nationwide in Mali. This project will measure the impact of SMC on the incidence, the antibody response to malaria antigens and to identify and map the spatial distribution of parasite reservoirs. The results of this study will define the consequences of SMC in pediatric populations in Mali and identify parasite reservoirs, helping to shape new approaches for future malaria control strategies.

Did your work and experience within MARCAD Programme help you in any way to get this award? If YES how?

I capitalized knowledge and skills that I acquired through MARCAD.

MARCAD draw my attention to the importance of the personal development plan, give me knowledge and skill on leadership and reinforce my skills on biostatistics; with the advice from MARCAD staff composed of well-known and world-class researchers all of these contributed to the R01 grant obtaining. 

During the MARCAD malaria elimination course, several discussions and advices from colleagues and supervisors helped me to understand more about malaria research and to identify the topic on which my R01 research proposal is built on.

For more details about Dr Coulibaly fellowship:

https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10217318#description