Breaking Barriers in Malaria Detection: NIHR GHRG Researchers Lead New Nature Communications Study (and Other Successes)
- Francesca Piffer, NIHR134694 Manager
- 3 days ago
- 9 min read
As we step into the fourth and final year of our NIHR Global Health Research Group on Digital Diagnostics for African Health Systems (NIHR134694), we do so with immense pride in the many personal and professional successes across our global group.
This new academic year begins on a high note, marked by a major publication in Nature Communications introducing a malaria diagnostic capable of detecting asymptomatic infections, alongside a cascade of international recognitions for our PhD students, members and other successes.
A Breakthrough in Malaria Diagnostics
The publication in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, titled Sensitive near point-of-care detection of asymptomatic and submicroscopic Plasmodium falciparum infections in African endemic countries emerges directly from the work of one of our Group’s PhD students — Dimbintsoa Rakotomalala Robinson — conducted in collaboration with research teams in The Gambia and Burkina Faso under the guidance of an exceptional supervisory team: Dr Jesus Rodriguez-Manzano (Imperial College London), Professor Umberto D'Alessandro (Director of MRC Unit The Gambia), Dr Annette Erhart (Malaria Coordinator at MRC Unit The Gambia), Professor Halidou Tinto (Director of the Institut de Sciences de la Santé–Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro, IRSS-CRUN), together with other key collaborators from our consortium, including Dr François Kiemde and Dr Diane Yirgnur Some (IRSS-CRUN), ProtonDx team, and the local team in Nanoro (Burkina Faso), one of the research site.
The study was made possible through technology developed by Dr Jesús Rodríguez-Manzano, whose Imperial spin-out company ProtonDx —co-founded with Professor Pantelis Georgiou and Dr Nick Moser —designed and produced the Dragonfly testing kits used in the study.
Building on this innovation through the NIHR Global Health Research Group, the team further developed and validated Dragonfly — a rapid, low-cost, and field-deployable molecular diagnostic platform capable of detecting Plasmodium falciparum infections from a simple finger-prick blood sample in under 45 minutes.
Crucially, the test identifies asymptomatic and sub-microscopic infections that are invisible to routine rapid diagnostic tests and microscopy — a vital step toward interrupting malaria transmission.
"This is the first time that a diagnostic test for use outside of a laboratory setting has proven sensitive enough to detect low level malaria parasite infections in people who don’t have any symptoms."
— Professor Aubrey Cunnington, Co-Lead, NIHR GHRG on Digital Diagnostics for African Health Systems
This milestone publication highlights not only scientific innovation but also the success of capacity-building and co-creation at the heart of our NIHR Group: a technology designed and evaluated with African researchers, for African health systems.
FROM RESEARCH TO GLOBAL IMPACT: OUR STUDENTS' LATEST SUCCESSES
Our students continue to gain international recognition for their research and impact.
Dimbintsoa Rakotomalala Robinson has been selected to compete in the ASTMH Young Investigator Award competition at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting in Toronto this November. His Nature Communications paper and ongoing field research represents an important contribution for malaria elimination strategies.
Dimbintsoa’s achievements also reflects the growing visibility of our students and leadership within international malaria policy dialogues.
Dimbintsoa Rakotomalala Robinson, with Jean-Bertin Kabuya — PhD student at the National Health Research and Training Institute (NHRTI), focusing on malaria in pregnancy and antimalarial drug resistance (SP3) — and Professor Aubrey Cunnington attended the Roll Back Malaria Case Management Working Group Annual Workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in September 2025. The meeting was facilitated by Dr Prudence Hamade, Senior Technical Advisor at Malaria Consortium, whose expertise in malaria case management and health systems strengthening helped guide the discussions and knowledge exchange among partners.
The meeting brought together WHO-AFRO and Malaria Control Programmes representatives, with leading research group members to discuss new evidence and tools supporting malaria diagnosis, treatment, and elimination.
Their participation provided an opportunity to showcase our Group’s contributions—particularly the Dragonfly diagnostic platform and ongoing studies in The Gambia, Burkina Faso, and Zambia—while strengthening partnerships with African malaria control programmes and global stakeholders.
Mamadu Baldeh has had his Late-Breaker Abstract accepted for poster presentation at the ASTMH 2025 Annual Meeting in Toronto. His study, “Clinical epidemiology and management of acute febrile illness in children under five years in The Gambia: A 13-year retrospective analysis,” provides valuable insights into the burden and management of febrile illness in young children—a topic of critical importance for child health and health systems strengthening in Africa.
Fatou Baldeh, one of the external PhD students collaborating with our NIHR Group, has been named a 2025 honoree of The Albies, awarded by the Clooney Foundation for Justice. Fatou is the founder of Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL), an organisation at the forefront of protecting the rights of women and girls in The Gambia.
Her recognition highlights her extraordinary advocacy in defending the country’s 2015 ban on female genital mutilation against attempts to overturn it in 2024. This latest honour follows a series of prestigious accolades, including being named Woman of the Year 2025, which together underscore her outstanding leadership and impact in advancing women’s rights and health equity in West Africa.
Close to this prestigious recognition, Fatou also successfully passed her Upgrade viva—an important academic milestone marking the mid-point of her PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), where she is supervised by Professor Julie Balen and Dr Anna Afferri as well as external supervision support from Dr Annette Erhart at MRC Gambia and Dr Rosemond Hiadzi at University of Ghana.
Welcoming a New Member to the Group: Dr Tim Arueyingho
We are also delighted to welcome Dr Tim Arueyingho, who joins our Group as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University, working alongside Professor Julie Balen, our NIHR GHRG Lead for Health Systems.
Tim is an interdisciplinary researcher with a PhD in Digital Health and Care, and a background in pharmacy and healthcare management. His doctoral work explored decolonial and Afrocentric approaches to inform the design and use of digital health interventions for type 2 diabetes in Nigeria.
His research focuses on developing culturally sensitive technologies to strengthen healthcare systems and improve the management of chronic conditions in Global South contexts.
He has authored eight peer-reviewed publications and delivered workshop contributions in this field, advancing the discourse on inclusive digital health innovation and context-appropriate technology design.
Beyond academia, Tim has served as a faculty member and mentor at Digital Health Africa and as *Director of Training and Development at Innovate Health Africa, where he designed the Africa Healthcare Innovation Fellowship curriculum and taught computer programming and design thinking for health.
Tim’s expertise and cross-disciplinary perspective will be invaluable as our Group continues to expand its research on digital diagnostics, equitable innovation, and decolonial approaches to health technology design.
Other Members’ Latest Successes
As of August 2025, Professor Julie Balen has taken up a new leadership role as School Lead for Research, Enterprise and Knowledge Mobilisation (REKM) at the School of Nursing, Midwifery, Allied and Public Health (SoNMAP), Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), UK.
The School was established following CCCU’s recent Transformational Change Programme, and as the SoNMAP Lead for REKM, Julie is responsible for driving the development of a strong research, enterprise, and knowledge mobilisation culture across the School.
Her work will directly support the delivery of CCCU’s Research, Enterprise, and Innovation Strategies, positioning SoNMAP as a vibrant hub of academic and translational excellence.
Professor Julie Balen also joins the Dean, Deputy Dean, Associate Deans, and other School Leads as part of the School’s Executive Team.
In her new role, Julie will engage with the entire REKM ecosystem to build and strengthen excellence in SoNMAP’s research portfolio, while continuing her commitment to global health partnerships, equitable research collaboration, and health systems innovation through her leadership in the NIHR GHRG on Digital Diagnostics for African Health Systems.
We are also delighted to share the latest news from Professor Luc de Witte, who has been appointed Director of the Centre of Expertise for Health Innovation at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands).
This multidisciplinary institute brings together eight full professors and over 100 researchers across different departments, working under two major research themes: health promotion (including lifestyle and healthy nutrition) and health and social care innovation. Both themes place strong emphasis on the use of technology and data science, as well as on addressing health inequalities.
While much of the Centre’s research is embedded in regional contexts, Professor de Witte continues to champion international collaboration, fostering partnerships that bridge research, innovation, and implementation across diverse health systems.
In addition to his university role, Luc in fact serves as President of the Global Alliance of Assistive Technology Organizations (GAATO)—an umbrella network of professional associations worldwide that collaborates closely with WHO and other global partners to improve access to assistive technologies for persons with disabilities.
Under Luc’s leadership, GAATO was recently listed by Forbes among the Top 100 Most Impactful Organizations advancing an inclusive society—an outstanding recognition of its global impact and commitment to equity in technology and health.
We are also proud to celebrate Professor Halidou Tinto, our Group Co-Lead and Director of Research in Parasitology at the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé – Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (IRSS-CRUN), Burkina Faso, who has been awarded the Al-Sumait Prize for African Development.
Established by the State of Kuwait, the Al-Sumait Prize honours individuals and institutions whose work has made a significant contribution to the advancement of health, food security, and education across Africa.
The prize commemorates the legacy of Dr Abdulrahman Al-Sumait (1947–2013), a Kuwaiti physician and humanitarian who dedicated his life to improving health and development across the continent.
Professor Tinto received the award in recognition of his outstanding leadership in malaria research, including the design and coordination of large-scale clinical trials that demonstrated the efficacy of the landmark RTS,S and R21 malaria vaccines. His pioneering work has not only advanced malaria prevention in Africa but has also strengthened African scientific capacity and global partnerships in health research.
This award adds to a long series of prestigious international recognitions that highlight Professor Tinto’s decades-long commitment to Africa-led innovation, excellence in clinical research, and equitable global collaboration—values that remain central to the mission of our NIHR Global Health Research Group on Digital Diagnostics for African Health Systems.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: PROMOTIONS AND LEADERSHIP HIGHLIGHTS
We are delighted to announce the well-deserved promotions of several of our Group members, in what has been an exceptional year of growth and achievements.
Dr Jesús Rodríguez-Manzano and Dr Myrsini Kaforou have both been promoted to Reader (Associate Professor) at Imperial College London.
Their continued leadership in molecular diagnostics, and translational infectious disease research has been instrumental in advancing the mission of our NIHR Group.
Dr Kenny Malpartida-Cárdenas, now promoted to Research Fellow at Imperial College London, has made strong contributions in the molecular diagnostics and biosensor technology the NIHR GHRG is built around.
Her work spans innovations including Lab-on-Chip platforms for malaria detection and drug resistance monitoring, as well as single-channel digital LAMP multiplexing.
We also extend our congratulations to Professor Ceire Costelloe, who has been recently appointed to the Chair in Health Informatics within the School of Public Health at Imperial College London.
Her work on data-driven health informatics, antimicrobial resistance, and infection surveillance continues to shape the integration of big data and AI into public health research and policy.
Another remarkable success comes from Professor Pantelis Georgiou who has been appointed Co-Director of the newly launched MUT-Imperial SABER Lab (Semiconductor AI & BioSensor Electronics Research Lab), established in partnership with Mahanakorn University of Technology (Thailand). The SABER Lab brings together expertise in semiconductor design, AI, and biosensor electronics to develop next-generation technologies that address global challenges in healthcare and agriculture.
Alongside this new international role, Pantelis — together with Dr Nick Moser — leads the development of Lacewing, a portable molecular diagnostic platform co-created within our NIHR Global Health Research Group to enable rapid, multiplex pathogen detection at the point of care. Their work is central to advancing digital diagnostics for malaria and other febrile illnesses across African health systems.
This new role reflects Pantelis’s expanding international leadership at the intersection of biomedical electronics, artificial intelligence, and diagnostic innovation—an area that lies at the very heart of our Group’s mission to transform healthcare delivery through accessible, high-performance technologies.
These outstanding promotions come on the heels of other significant appointments solidified last year.
Professor Samuel Duodu (University of Ghana) was appointed to a professorship (link forthcoming), Professor Jethro Herberg has been promoted to Professor of Paediatric Infectious Disease at Imperial College London, in recognition by the NIHR Imperial BRC promotions framework.
Meanwhile, Professor Aubrey Cunnington has taken on a new role as Deputy Head of the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London, cementing his leadership within Imperial’s global health community.
As we move into the final year of our NIHR Global Health Research Group, we do so with a real sense of pride and momentum. From groundbreaking publications and new leadership roles to international awards and collaborative innovations, this past year has shown what’s possible when talented people across Africa and the UK work together with purpose and passion.
We’ll keep building on this energy — advancing digital diagnostics, strengthening health systems, and making sure innovation stays equitable, impactful, and rooted in the communities it aims to serve.
Here’s to an inspiring final year — and to the many more partnerships, discoveries, and successes still to come.
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