Malaria vaccine protection against intradermal or venous parasites: a randomized phase 2b human challenge trial - Nature Medicine The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, but not the ME-TRAP vaccine, was protective against intradermal challenge with Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites, while neither was protective against direct venous inoculati...

At 1Day Sooner, we spotlight research that is rigorous, ethical, and impactful.

Learn more about this trial here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The impact: This could change how malaria vaccines are prioritized, combined, and tested. Better-targeted vaccines and smarter trials could help close the gap on a disease that still kills 600,000+ people each year.

Why we love it: It helps solve the “leaky protection” puzzle. Most mosquito bites leave parasites in the skin, where antibodies can stop them. But some bites may hit a blood vessel, which allows parasites to bypass those defenses and cause breakthrough infections.

What’s happening? A challenge trial in Kenya tested malaria vaccines and showed that route of infection matters. Vaccines targeting the circumsporozoite protein protected volunteers when parasites entered through the skin, but not when injected straight into the bloodstream.

At 1Day Sooner, we believe volunteers are essential to medical progress.

Learn more about participating: ucsf.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Learn more about the study: neuroscape.ucsf.edu/get-involved...

The Impact:
Depression affects 280 million people worldwide, and many do not respond to current treatments. This research could help make future therapies safer and more effective.

Why We Love It:
It goes beyond the drug itself to understand how context shapes outcomes, helping build a clearer picture of what makes these treatments work.

What’s Happening:
This study looks at how psilocybin, along with a participant’s mindset and environment, affects the psychedelic experience and mental well-being. Volunteers receive either psilocybin or a placebo in different conditions.

If you’ve participated in a human challenge study, or are interested in doing so, 1Day Sooner wants to hear from you. You can sign up at: 1daysooner.org/volunteer/ or reach out at volunteer@1daysooner.org.

You can learn more about Angelique here: 1daysooner.org/meet-angeliq...

And you can learn more about the Participant Council here: 1daysooner.org/council/

This is the first in a series spotlighting the volunteers who make up 1Day Sooner's Participant Council:

Meet Angelique Mseteka! Angelique first participated in a clinical trial to serve her community, and now she's passionate about helping others to do the same!

The impact:
These findings help advance our understanding of Nipah virus vaccines, and could shape future research and policy for emerging infectious diseases.

Learn more here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why we love it:
This study uses thoughtful design to generate clear, meaningful insights about how structure-based mRNA vaccines can safely induce durable immunity against high-risk viruses.

What’s happening:
Researchers tested a first-in-human mRNA vaccine for Nipah virus and found it was safe and triggered strong immune responses in healthy adults.

The Impact:
Each year 10-15 million people are infected with P. vivax worldwide, yet there is still no approved vaccine.

At 1Day Sooner, we believe volunteers are essential to medical progress. For more information about enrolling in this trial, visit: www.unensayoparami.org/en/studies/n...

What’s Happening:
Researchers in Chocó, Colombia are testing a new vaccine designed to prevent Plasmodium vivax malaria.

Why We Love It:
Healthy volunteers make this research possible — helping move science forward faster and more safely.

We’re starting a new series called “Trials We Love,” in which we'll highlight clinical trials that our team is excited about! Our goal is to draw attention to opportunities to participate in research and share information about impactful trial results!

Clinical Trial Abundance is the idea that we should make health evidence easier to generate and do more with the evidence we already have. Does this sound like a policy agenda that you'd be excited to lead? APPLY: www.1daysooner.org/jobs/

Advances like CRISPR-Cas9, next-generation sequencing, mRNA vaccines, and AI should be enabling a wave of biomedical innovation, but they are bottlenecked by the difficulty and expense of human testing. Want to work on solutions? APPLY: www.1daysooner.org/jobs/

We are HIRING! 1Day Sooner is hiring a Policy Lead to drive the policy agenda of our Clinical Trial Abundance (CTA) program. If this looks like you, please APPLY: 1daysooner.org/jobs/

A Pandemic Peer Review Mechanism, an African-led accountability system, could help to ensure preparedness doesn’t fade after crises.

The treaty’s real test will be in national budgets, laws, factories & regulatory systems.
Implementation = equity.

The treaty introduces a Pathogen Access & Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system requiring 20% of pandemic products for WHO distribution.

Important step — especially after COVID, when Africa (17% of global population) received <3% of vaccines.

But key equity details are still unresolved

The WHO pandemic agreement—securing Africa’s leadership in a fragmenting global order In May 2025, the World Health Assembly adopted the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement, aimed at strengthening global pandemic preparedness and equity. This legally binding treaty emerged from years of ne...

The first legally binding global treaty on pandemic preparedness, the WHO Pandemic Agreement, was adopted in May 2025.

A new BMJ Global Health analysis co-authored by 1Day's Zach Kafuko gh.bmj.com/content/11/2... argues that its success hinges on how Africa shapes implementation.

Through structured volunteer input, the Participant Council aims to strengthen trust, transparency, and participant-centered research worldwide. Learn more by visiting the website or reading the meeting notes: t.co/tIhhCbDkZj

The discussion focused on how to communicate potential impact in ways that are clear, credible, and accessible, while remaining attentive to equity concerns such as rare diseases and global differences in disease burden.

Pre-meeting survey results showed that 75% of members consider a study’s potential impact a major factor in their decision to enrol, yet many noted how difficult it can be to assess real-world benefits at the point of consent.

Last month, 1Day Sooner convened the first meeting of its Participant Council, bringing together 19 healthy research volunteers from 8 countries to help shape the future of clinical trial participation.

The solution: shared leadership, sustained investment, and stronger regional trial and regulatory capacity. Expanding early-phase research in Africa isn’t charity—it’s smart, ethical, and economically sound.

This is both an equity and a science issue. Genetic diversity, environment, and lived context shape how medicines work—early-phase trials must reflect that reality to ensure treatments are truly safe and effective.

Sub-Saharan Africa bears the highest global disease burden—yet <3% of clinical trials take place there, and very few are early-phase. That means key safety and dosing decisions are often made without data from the populations most affected. www.nature.com/articles/s44...