Researchers at GW earned a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutions of Health to start a phase one clinical trial of a hookworm vaccine in Brazil, according to a press release.

The leading researchers – Jeffrey Bethony, a professor of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine and David Diemert, an associate professor of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine – will partner with the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz in Brazil, the University of California at San Francisco and Johns Hopkins University, as well as the Sabin Vaccine Institute to conduct the trial, according to the release.

“Tropical vaccines are getting a boost at GW,” Bethony said in the release. “We have the capacity to do vaccine clinical trials here and in developing countries. It’s what we’re good at. Besides malaria, there isn’t another group that does this for tropical diseases.”

The researchers will test two existing hookworm vaccines to see if they can create one effective vaccine, Diemert, one of the SMHS professors, said in the release.

“What we need to know is if by combining these two vaccines, the immune response to either of them is impaired,” he said. “We want to know whether there is competition between the vaccines and if there are any safety risks with combining them.”

Bethony and Diemert also received a planning grant from the NIH to vaccinate D.C. volunteers and then infect them with hookworm to test how well the vaccine works – the next step in a clinical trial from last year in which volunteers were also infected with hookworms, according to the release.