 My name is Melissa Kapulu. I'm a post-doctor research scientist based at the Kimiwokam Trust Kilifi campus. My area of research is based largely on malaria and looking at immunology, transmission dynamics and epidemiology and largely focusing on immunopidemiology of transmission stages as well as establishing platforms and models that can be used to interrogate immunity. So broadly speaking human infection studies in the last 5 to 10 years have largely shifted to lower middle income countries. These are studies that have largely been undertaken in naive populations in developed countries and there is now need to set up these models in endemic regions. And the reason for this is that with endemic regions there is naturally acquired immunity or pre-existing immunity. Body of knowledge that has grown in the last even 20 years is that when a vaccine is developed, let's say for instance in the United Kingdom or in the US, it is tested to look at efficacy in human infection studies in the US in a naive population. It will give very great results of maybe 60 to 80 percent efficacy. As soon as that vaccine then moves to an endemic population, the vaccine efficacy dwindles. It wanes and it can be anything between 10 to 50 percent. So that in there are modulating circumstances based on the fact that individuals are exposed to a plator of illnesses including the actual vaccine disease target. So it is very important that during the development pipeline of a vaccine for instance, you do actually look at efficacy within the setting that that vaccine will be used. So in our case we've established the human malaria infection model to look at naturally acquired immunity because that is key to understand how immunity develops in the context of for instance, past exposure. And that will give us answers on what potential correlates of protection one can garner when you're looking at various vaccine targets. In addition to looking at potential correlates of protection, you can also look at potential other secondary targets that you can then develop into potential second generation vaccines. One would ask a question, why does this matter? Why invest time, effort and money into this? This is important. It matters because it builds capacity in the local context. It matters because it provides establishment of key scientific findings, establishment of key scientific processes happening in lower to middle income countries. This is very key if we're going to have a situation where solutions are coming from areas that are actively affected by these disease processes. And it is key that scientists in areas that are affected play a role in coming up with solutions that could benefit not just the local context, but even the wider context. I believe in strong collaborations between North and South and South and South. Therefore, the fact that you would be able to establish such type of studies in a South setting comparably with a North setting is very important. It builds capacity. It builds knowledge base. There's a lot of insights we can gain by doing these studies in settings like in the South. And also it allows for integration of scientific thought, integration of scientific processes that would otherwise not organically happen if there was no investment in effort and time in setting these studies up in areas that are important. My research and my research interest fit in broadly and widely in translational medicine. I feel that I am at the more or less the bridge between basic science and translational science. What we gain from insights in chopping up a mosquito in the lab to look at whether it's got parasites will have an effect on how that then gets translated into whether you're going to test an intervention in that particular mosquito strain. So I believe that in broad and as well as narrow terms, in terms of translational research, that is a whole process which encompasses both basic as well as moving into translational research. So for translational medicine to come up with potential correlates of protection, potential targets for vaccine development, potential models and mechanisms to test various interventions, that is really key in trying to translate our science from the bench to the field.