1041 - World Malaria Day: Promising Tools for Elimination Amidst Research Cuts
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
About this episode:
Exacerbated by cuts to research funding and on-the-ground interventions, malaria remains one of the deadliest and most burdensome health crises across the globe. In this episode: Jane Carlton of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute details the state of the disease in 2026 and how tools like improved vaccines and genetically modified mosquitoes can bring us closer to elimination.
Guest:
Jane Carlton, PhD, is a Bloomberg distinguished professor and the director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.
Host:
Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Show links and related content:
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The Malaria Minute Podcast—The Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
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World Malaria Day: Advocacy on Capitol Hill—Funding, Research, and Global Impact—Public Health On Call (April 2025)
Transcript information:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:31.5 | It's Lindsay Smith Rogers. Today, malaria, a disease that still kills around 600,000 people every year, most of them children under age five. |
| 0:41.1 | Just in time for World Malaria Day, Dr. Jane Carlton, the director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, |
| 0:47.3 | sits down with Stephanie Desmond to discuss the deadly mosquito-borne disease and where things are today with trying to prevent it. |
| 0:53.6 | While the fight has |
| 0:54.9 | faced setbacks as mosquitoes and parasites evolve resistance and global funding is drying up, |
| 1:00.4 | Dr. Carlton talks about the many fronts researchers are fighting, including vaccines, mosquito control, |
| 1:05.9 | and even gene editing to prevent malaria's ability to spread, which all offer some hope. Let's listen. |
| 1:11.9 | Jane Carlton, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:16.2 | You are the director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. Can you tell us a little |
| 1:20.9 | about what that is? Yes, absolutely. The Malaria Research Institute was founded in 2001. |
| 1:30.9 | In fact, it's our 25th anniversary this year, |
| 1:36.7 | and it's been continuously supported by Michael Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies. |
| 1:43.7 | And we are a concentration of malaria researchers based at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 1:47.2 | but also with field sites in several African countries. |
| 1:54.1 | There are a total of 16 or so tenure track faculty, but with a total staff of close to 100. And we undertake research on all aspects of malaria, from developing new anti-malarial drugs to novel methods for |
| 2:03.1 | controlling mosquitoes, new vaccine candidates, and we undertake both basic research, but also |
| 2:10.0 | all the way through to translational, as I mentioned. So we develop assays and new targets |
| 2:16.9 | in Baltimore, and then we take them over to our field |
... |
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