Professor Mallika Imwong
Contact information
Research groups
Mallika Imwong
My research works have focused on three aspects:
- to understand how drug resistance emerges and spreads in malaria parasites in Asia and Africa
- to detect and characterise the true epidemiology of malaria in low transmissions setting
- to investigate the biology of relapse of benign malaria.
I am currently involved in surveillance studies describing the molecular epidemiology of drug resistance in different parts of the region including Thai-Burmese border, Eastern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos PDA, and Afghanistan. A key objective is to determine the genetic and mechanistic basis for increased resistance of P. falciparum to artemisinin. The development of an inexpensive and effective genetic tool is essential for public health monitoring for artemisinin resistance. My ongoing projects will use genotyping markers or phenotypic properties for the fitness cost alleviating genetic variants validated loci and conduct follow-up molecular epidemiological surveys to assess their prevalence throughout the GMS in the current state of transmission. Therefore, this will also allow us to assess the potential of the GMS to develop drug resistance phenotypes and to evaluate the potential that such phenotypes emerge in other parts of the malaria world (such as Africa), as control programs progress towards elimination.
Transnational spread of multidrug resistant PfPailin
Key publications
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The spread of artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum in the Greater Mekong subregion: a molecular epidemiology observational study
Imwong M. et al, (2017), The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 17, 491 - 497
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Spread of a single multidrug resistant malaria parasite lineage ( PfPailin ) to Vietnam
Imwong M. et al, (2017), The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 17, 1022 - 1023
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Spread of artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum in Myanmar: a cross-sectional survey of the K13 molecular marker
Tun KM. et al, (2015), The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 15, 415 - 421
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High-Throughput Ultrasensitive Molecular Techniques for Quantifying Low-Density Malaria Parasitemias
Imwong M. et al, (2014), Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 52, 3303 - 3309
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Numerical Distributions of Parasite Densities During Asymptomatic Malaria
Imwong M. et al, (2016), Journal of Infectious Diseases, 213, 1322 - 1329
Recent publications
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Correction to: The use of ultrasensitive quantitative-PCR to assess the impact of primaquine on asymptomatic relapse of Plasmodium vivax infections: a randomized, controlled trial in Lao PDR
Phommasone K. et al, (2020), Malaria Journal, 19
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Genetic analysis of the orthologous crt and mdr1 genes in Plasmodium malariae from Thailand and Myanmar
Pimpat Y. et al, (2020), Malaria Journal, 19
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Molecular epidemiology of resistance to antimalarial drugs in the Greater Mekong subregion: an observational study
Imwong M. et al, (2020), The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 20, 1470 - 1480
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The use of ultrasensitive quantitative-PCR to assess the impact of primaquine on asymptomatic relapse of Plasmodium vivax infections: a randomized, controlled trial in Lao PDR
Phommasone K. et al, (2020), Malaria Journal, 19
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The characterization of extracellular vesicles-derived microRNAs in Thai malaria patients.
Ketprasit N. et al, (2020), Malaria journal, 19