The biotechnology firm Sanaria has created the world's first 100 percent effective vaccine for malaria, and is now launching a crowd-funding website to build a robot to deliver the vaccine.
Malaria causes illness in more than 200 million people around the world every year, and has resulted in 600,000 deaths per year, according to The International Business Times. Until the Maryland-based company created what's called the PfSPZ Vaccine, there was no vaccine available that could fully protect the body from the parasitic disease.
"This was a concept that most people thought was impossible," said Dr. Kim Lee Sim, executive vice president of process development and manufacturing at Sanaria. "People said: 'This is a crazy idea.'"
The cyborg, called "SpoRobot" will aim to increase the efficiency of extracting the salivary glands from mosquitoes for the vaccine, The Daily Beast reported.
Each researcher at Sanaria is able to dissect 160 mosquitoes each hour - a process that requires a lot of time.
"If we had a robot, it could work 24/7 and it could increase production 20 to 30-fold," said Dr. Stephen Hoffman, founder of Sanaria. "And it would require less training. It would be a dramatic improvement to provide the vaccine if we had a robot."
The vaccine has received criticism about the practicality of its development, since it has to be given intravenously, which can be bothering to some people and is invasive. Multiple doses may be needed for complete protection, making it difficult to administer the vaccine in large populations, The Daily Beast reported.
"Science is science. It's not magic," Hoffman said. "To have the expectation everything will work the first time around is fantasy."
Sanaria is looking to build SpoRobot so that they can manufacture the vaccine on a large scale, International Business Times reported.
The company plans to raise $250,000 through the crowd funding site Indiegogo to build a small-scale prototype of the robot. The firm has raised more than $10,000 since launching the site on Tuesday.
"With SporoBot we can really scale up to deliver this to everyone who needs it," Sim said. "The parts of SporoBot work and now we have to put them together. This campaign is designed to get us to the prototype for producing the vaccine for the world."
