As part of a comprehensive effort to properly evaluate the potential of new malaria vaccine candidates, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) continues its support for a range of laboratory tools, including those that employ the growth inhibition assay (GIA) at the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research (LMVR), US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health.

Established in 2004 with MVI support, the purpose of the GIA Reference Center has evolved from support for a primarily research assay to support for an assay that is used more widely as a decision-making tool in the assessment of candidate vaccines that target the malaria parasite when at its most destructive—when it enters human red blood cells.

The GIA Reference Center measures and assesses the ability of blood-stage vaccines to induce an antibody response—one that inhibits the ability of malaria parasites to infect and replicate in human red blood cells. MVI has used GIA as a potency assay to compare the immunogenicity of various blood-stage vaccine candidates.