MalariaGEN is an international community of researchers investigating how genetic variation affects interactions between people and parasites, and parasites and mosquitoes.
Their projects form a framework to enable large-scale collaborations between malaria researchers.
By enabling researchers to work together, MalariaGEN are improving worldwide understanding of the evolutionary battle between:
MalariaGEN’s content model was particularly complex, for the build to go as smoothly as possible it was vital to factor in all potential relationships early on.
A great deal of collaborative work was required to capture “what if” scenarios. While they may be in the minority, from a technical point of view they needed to be given the same treatment as the more common relationships in order to be managed in a consistent way.
MalariaGEN collaborations includes everything from rural communities afflicted by malaria to leading genome sequencing centres.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we decided the best way to display the geographical spread of everybody involved is a map. But there's some nifty interactivity built in. Clicking on a country acts a filter, listing all the projects taking place in any particular country.
MalariaGEN had evolved over the past ten years, and we desperately needed a digital platform that better reflected key aspects of our work – our community, projects and data resources. It’s a complex landscape.
Manta Ray Media dug into the challenge and, at times, tested assumptions and ideas in important ways – in the process creating a wonderful new website. They are a small team, but highly responsive, patient, creative, and knowledgeable in the global health sector – qualities that were invaluable during our redesign.
