The Immunology Institute at Universidad del Valle, in Cali, Columbia has several laboratories for basic and applied research. All laboratories are located in the same building at the Campus of the School of Health. Laboratories for serology, cell culture, peptide synthesis, molecular biology, parasite cultures as well as an insectory are available and most of them will be used for the three projects described here. Common facilities are available for frozen storage (-170 degrees Centigrade and liquid nitrogen) of sera and cells for the serological and cell mediated immunity studies (projects1-3). Cell culture facilities offer the possibility to study T cell responses and the potential to grow P: vivax in short-term cultures. They are essential for the analyses of the biological function of antibodies specific for asexual blood stages antigens, in invasion blocking experiment. This will also permit the production of crude antigens for ELISA; IFAT and western blot analyses (projects 1-3). The peptide synthesis facility would also offer support to projects including immunological analyses at the epitope level, for which, short peptides are essential. The molecular biology laboratory has the facilities for PCR analyses (PCR, nested PCR, RT-PCR), which are currently being used for malaria diagnosis, for the study of gene polymorphism, cytokine gene detection and malaria drug resistance. It would facilitate the polymorphism analyses of the different antigens under study (projects 1- 3). The insectory is essential for the production of live sporozoites as well as for the functional analyses of transmission blocking immunity (projects 1& 2). P. vivax sporozoites will first permit a set of in vitro experiments: antigen production, hepatocyte invasion assays, transmission blocking tests, irradiated-parasite experiments, and the second will be of the utmost importance for challenge experiments in the pre-clinical trials.
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