The malaria epidemic — and the response to it led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle — is featured in a series of articles this week in the Seattle Times.

Times reporters and photographers visited sites where the Gates foundation is conducting trials of a new vaccine in countries such as Tanzania and Zambia, in an article about what one observer says has been the foundation’s almost single-handed revitalization of malaria research.

Among the interactive features accompanying the series is a question-and-answer session with Mr. Gates for which audio is available online. The Times also hosts an online discussion at noon on Wednesday with an expert from the foundation.