NIH expands global malaria research

The National Institutes of Health is to continue to run four international malaria research centers and will open three more.

The NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced a seven-year award for seven malaria research centers of excellence. A NIAID spokeswoman says the agency will split $8.9 million among the centers in the first year, although she says that number could change depending on budget decisions.

The NIAID began funding four of the centers in 2010, based at Johns Hopkins University; the University of California, San Francisco; the University of California, San Diego; and Pennsylvania State University. Those centers focus respectively on southern and central Africa, Uganda, the Amazon and Southeast Asia.