ClinicalTrials.gg
Not yet recruitingNCT07558122Updated Sep 9, 2026

Malaria CVD 36000; Gates INV090205

A Phase 1 interventional study of PfSPZ Challenge (NF54) and Wearable Biosensor Devices in Malaria (Plasmodium Falciparum), sponsored by University of Maryland, Baltimore. Not yet recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 50 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-09-09.

Sponsored by University of Maryland, Baltimore · Phase 1, Interventional, and Diagnostic

Phase
Phase 1
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
32
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 50 Years
Sex
All
01

Where this study stands

Counted across the records on this site · 2026-11-12

Among 12 studies testing PfSPZ Challenge in Malaria, Falciparum — 1 open to participants now, 1 under way, none of them phase 3. PfSPZ Challenge · Malaria, Falciparum.

Planned enrollment
6th of 12
32 · median 31
Started
2026
the only one that year
Phase 1
11 of 12
1 open now
Registered
12th of 12
by date
Lead sponsor
1 of 12
University of Maryland, Baltimore

Among the 12 studies testing PfSPZ Challenge in Malaria, Falciparum, this one is the 6th largest by planned enrollment, is the only one that started in 2026, is one of 11 in phase 1, and was the 12th registered.

Malaria, Falciparum

455 studies on the registry are indexed under Malaria, Falciparum; 37 are open to participants now.

Browse Malaria, Falciparum studies →

Open to participants now

1 of the 12 studies testing PfSPZ Challenge in Malaria, Falciparum is open now, in 1 country.

By country, each count listing its studies:

About PfSPZ Challenge

No approval found in the FDA or EMA files read. How studies give it is on its page →

Who these studies take

Of the 21 Malaria, Falciparum studies recruiting now, 5 (24%) set no upper age limit and 15 (71%) stop at 75 or younger; 14 take children under 18; 9 take healthy volunteers.

This study: 18 Years to 50 Years · all sexes · healthy volunteers too.

The full table on the hub →

This tab as a report to print or save as PDF → With an account.

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Watch this landscapeDownload CSVNarrow it in search →With an account: a weekly mail of what changed among 12 studies testing PfSPZ Challenge in Malaria, Falciparum, or all of them as a file.
02

Study summary

In order to control infections, the investigators must first detect them. Biosensor devices may allow early detection and intervention for infectious diseases, helping the investigators to recognize infections early, and allow for early treatment. This will lower transmission of infections and lower costs for treating someone who becomes ill. This is a study testing whether a wearable device such as a wristband and/or earphones can measure early biologic signals to detect identify infection in prior to seeing symptoms related of a disease. As a first test of this technology, the investigators will expose participants to injectable malaria or placebo. This is called a "Controlled Human Malaria Infection" (CHMI). Everyone who takes part in the CHMI may get malaria infection. The investigators will detect malaria using standard blood tests. The investigators will also look for early symptoms of malaria infection like changes in temperature, heart rate, breathing, sleep patterns, and changes in skin and muscle activity or voice. These signals may allow the investigators to detect early malaria infection. This is a study testing whether a wearable device such as a wristband and/or earphones can measure early biologic signals to detect malaria infection before symptoms occur, as confirmed by standard blood testing.

03

Conditions studied

  • Malaria (Plasmodium Falciparum)

Browse trials for

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 50 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Male or non-pregnant, non-breastfeeding female between 18 and 50 years of age (inclusive) at the time of consent.
  2. Participants must be able to provide written .
  3. Participants must be healthy as established by medical history and clinical examination at study entry.
  4. Participants must pass a comprehension (defined as 80%) test and be able to comply with all study requirements.
  5. Both males and females are eligible to participate as per the following:

Participants physically capable of pregnancy must agree to use effective to avoid pregnancy from 28 days before enrollment through 10 months after last administration of product are eligible to participate. An effective contraceptive method is defined as one that results in a failure rate of less than 1% per year when it is used consistently and correctly. Adequate contraceptive precautions include intrauterine contraceptive device, oral contraceptives, diaphragm, or condom in combination with contraceptive jelly, cream, or foam; Norplant® or Depo-Provera®, through the completion of study visits to minimize any potential risk.

i. Effective contraception does not apply to participants of with same sex partners, when this is their preferred and usual lifestyle.

ii. Adequate contraception does not apply to women with documented surgical sterility (tubal ligation, bilateral oophorectomy, salpingectomy, or hysterectomy), congenital sterility, who have a diagnosis of infertility and are not undergoing treatment, or women who have not had a menstrual period in at least 1 year

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
  2. Any confirmed or suspected or immunodeficient condition, based on medical history and physical examination (no laboratory testing required)
  3. History of malaria infection, or history > 6 months spent in a malaria endemic region within 5 years prior to enrollment.
  4. Participant seropositive for surface antigen (HBsAg), virus antibodies (anti-HCV), or antibodies (anti-HIV).

    Note: Prior participants of HIV vaccine studies may result in a false positive HIV antibody test, as such, in this scenario, participant will be eligible if they have a negative HIV RNA PCR at screening.

  5. Safety laboratory test results within range at screening (as per FDA Toxicity Grading Scale, see Appendix A):

    • White Blood Cell (WBC) 3,500-12,000/mm3
    • WBC differential either within institutional normal range or accompanied by the PI or designee approval
    • = 125,000 - 500,000/mm3
    • within institutional normal range or accompanied by the PI or designee approval
    • Creatinine ≤ 1.1 x (ULN)
    • ≤1.25 x ULN
    • Grade 1 subclinical abnormalities in other chemistries will not lead to exclusion if the investigator considers them not
  6. A 5-year cardiovascular risk of >10% using the Gaziano nomogram (Appendix B)
  7. Significant screening physical examination abnormalities at the discretion of the investigator, including a > 35 kg/m2
  8. (ECG) with clinically significant abnormalities (examples may include: pathologic Q waves, significant ST-T wave changes, left ventricular hypertrophy, any non-sinus rhythm excluding isolated premature atrial contractions, right or left bundle branch block, advanced A-V heart block). ECG abnormalities determined by an investigator to be clinically insignificant as related to trial participation do not preclude trial enrollment. Consultation may be sought by a cardiologist at investigator discretion.
  9. Known intolerance to atovaquone or proguanil, and either artemether/lumefantrine or chloroquine phosphate
  10. Routine use of antibiotics, or use of antibiotics with known antimalarial effect (azithromycin, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole or tetracyclines) within 4 weeks prior to CHMI.
  11. Anticipated use of medications known to cause drug reactions with chloroquine or atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone®) such as cimetidine, metoclopramide, antacids, and kaolin.
  12. Administration of immunoglobulins and/or any blood products during the period starting 90 days preceding the CHMI or planned administration during the study period
  13. Planned administration or administration of a /product not planned in the study protocol during the period starting 30 days prior to the CHMI until the study completion (routine vaccinations will be allowed if it is not administered within 14 days preceding or 21 days following CHMI)
  14. Use of any or non-registered product (drug or vaccine during the period starting 30 days preceding the CHMI and/or planned use during the study period
  15. Chronic administration (defined as more than 14 days in total) of immunosuppressants or other immune-modifying drugs during the period starting 90days prior to the CHMI (for , this will mean prednisone >5mg/day or equivalent; inhaled, intranasal and topical steroids are allowed)
  16. Concurrently participating in another clinical study, at any time during the study period, in which the participant has been or will be exposed to an investigational or a non-investigational product (pharmaceutical product or device)
  17. Bleeding disorder diagnosed by a doctor (e.g., factor deficiency, coagulopathy, or platelet disorder requiring special precautions) or significant bruising or blood draws
  18. History of a splenectomy, sickle cell disease or sickle cell trait
  19. History of skeeter syndrome or anaphylactic response to mosquito-bites
  20. disease or history of autoimmune disease
  21. History of any reaction or likely to be exacerbated by any component of the study product or related to a study procedure
  22. Major congenital defects or serious chronic illness
  23. Presence of any implanted device which could bias biosensor data (e.g., pacemaker, etc.)
  24. Acute disease and/or fever (≥37.5°C/99.5°F oral body temperature) at the time of enrollment: note that a participant with a minor illness such as mild diarrhea, mild upper respiratory infection, etc., without fever, may be enrolled at the discretion of the investigator
  25. Acute or chronic, clinically significant pulmonary, cardiovascular, hepatic, neurological disorders, seizures or renal functional abnormality, as determined by history, physical examination or laboratory screening tests
  26. History of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, hospitalization in the past year for a mental health disorder, or any other psychiatric condition, which in the opinion of the investigator prevents the participant from participating in the study
  27. Any current medical, psychiatric, occupational, or substance abuse problems that, in the opinion of the Investigator, will make it unlikely that the participant will comply with the protocol.
  28. Any other condition which, in the opinion of the investigator, prevents the participant from participating in the study
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(19)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

Hepatitis B tests

Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.

Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.

Hepatitis C tests

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.

After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

Platelets

Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.

Hemoglobin (Hb)

The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).

ULN (upper limit of normal)

The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.

“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.

ALT and AST (liver enzymes)

Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.

Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.

Clinically significant

Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.

BMI (body mass index)

Weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Example: 70 kg and 1.75 m gives 70 ÷ (1.75 × 1.75) ≈ 22.9.

What counts as overweight or obesity differs between countries (some use lower cut-offs), so go by the range the study states.

ECG (electrocardiogram)

A recording of the heart’s electrical activity, taken with stickers on the chest, arms and legs. It takes a few minutes and does not hurt.

Live vaccines

Vaccines made with a weakened form of the germ, such as measles–mumps–rubella (MMR), chickenpox and yellow fever. They can be risky when the immune system is weakened. Flu injections are not live; the nasal flu spray is.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

Hypersensitivity

An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1
Primary purpose
Diagnostic
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Quadruple (Participant, Care provider, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
32 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    PfSPZ Challenge

    0.5 mL single-dose of PfSPZ Challenge (strain NF54)

    Biological: PfSPZ Challenge (NF54) · Device: Wearable Biosensor Devices

  • Placebo comparator
    Placebo

    Normale saline placebo

    Device: Wearable Biosensor Devices · Other: Placebo

Interventions

  • PfSPZ Challenge (NF54) administered as a single dose by direct venous inoculation (DVI)

  • DeviceWearable Biosensor Devices

    Investigational, wearable biosensing devices. The objective would be to collect biosensor data for correlation to known malaria infection by reference diagnostic testing and with physiological (clinical) data.

  • OtherPlacebo

    Normal saline placebo

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Presence of detectable malaria parasitemia following controlled human malaria infection exposure by the Direct Venous Inoculation (DVI) of cryopreserved P. falciparum NF54-strain sporozoites

    Presence or absence of RT-qPCR through Day 28 (unit - Ct value)

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  2. Presence of detectable malaria parasitemia following controlled human malaria infection exposure by the Direct Venous Inoculation (DVI) of cryopreserved P. falciparum NF54-strain sporozoites

    Presence of absence of Thick Blood Smear - unit - parasite/mm3 or mL

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  3. Time of detectable malaria parasitemia following controlled human malaria infection exposure by the Direct Venous Inoculation (DVI) of cryopreserved P. falciparum NF54-strain sporozoites

    Time to Pf infection (unit - days)

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  4. Presence or absence of temperature associated with pre-infection, asymptomatic parasitemia and symptomatic parasitemia

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  5. Presence or absence of heart Rate changes associated with pre-infection, asymptomatic parasitemia and symptomatic parasitemia

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  6. Presence or absence of Respiratory Rate associated with pre-infection, asymptomatic parasitemia and symptomatic parasitemia

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

  7. Presence or absence of Solicited Systemic Symptoms associated with pre-infection, asymptomatic parasitemia and symptomatic parasitemia

    (yes/no to headache, fatigue/malaise, myalgia, arthralgia, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting)

    Time frame: From challenge to the end of participation at day 56

07

Study locations

1 site
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Start is estimated for Nov 2026; primary completion for Dec 2026, 1 month later.

Of 29 non-industry phase 1 interventional studies under Malaria, Falciparum, half reached primary completion within 12 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 5 and three quarters within 24. This study's planned 1 month is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 49 studies reached it within 13 months; a quarter within 7 and three quarters within 18.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Apr 1, 2026
First posted
Apr 30, 2026
StartEst.
Nov 2026
Primary completionEst.
Dec 2026
CompletionEst.
Dec 2026
Last update
Sep 9, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Sep 9, 2026, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07558122
Collaborators
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sanaria Inc., University of Texas at Austin
Responsible party
Kirsten Lyke (Principal Investigator, Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore) — Principal investigator
First posted
Apr 30, 2026
Start date
Nov 2026 (estimated)
Primary completion
Dec 2026 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 2026 (estimated)
Last update
Sep 9, 2026

Study contacts

Kirsten Lyke, MD
Contact
klyke@som.umaryland.edu
410-706-6156

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
Yes
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Sep 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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Discussion

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Studies of the drug tested here: PfSPZ Challenge

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