Dr Rina Fu

“Fight Against Malaria” is an original musical composition written by Dr Rina Fu, a musician scientist, upon her completion of her PhD research into malaria drug resistance. This song was nominated as a People’s Choice finalist at the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) inaugural 3-minute thesis competition.

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This music video was produced in collaboration with UWA Media for featuring on ABC Catalyst and encapsulates her journey in the fight against malaria. The video montage depicts Rina’s experience at the field health outpost in Alexishafen, Papua New Guinea. Her activities there included collecting malaria-infected blood samples from children for laboratory parasite culture and drug sensitivity testing. Also featured is her development of a molecular parasite mutation DNA screening test using the new ‘glow-beads’ multiplex technology pioneered at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA. Finally, the footage also depicts her day-to-day work of breeding malaria parasites at Fremantle Hospital, Fremantle, Western Australia.

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Special Note: Since the song has been written, global efforts towards malaria elimination has reduced annual mortality from 2 million to 0.5 million.