The Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund has awarded the University of Florida and partners in the United States and Japan $3.2 million to advance a promising vaccine to prevent transmission of malaria.

Rhoel Dinglasan, an associate professor of infectious diseases in UF's College of Veterinary Medicine and the university's Emerging Pathogens Institute, has spent years developing a malaria transmission blocking vaccine, or TBV. 

The new grant from the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund will further development of processes to move the vaccine from the experimental stage to human trials and, ultimately, a clinical treatment.

The GHIT Fund is an international public-private partnership spearheaded by the Government of Japan, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and a group of pharmaceutical companies.