Circadian Rhythms in malaria infection: uncovering the molecular clocks of parasites
Filipa Rijo-Ferreira, Professor
Public Health
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
Parasitic diseases cause major health burden worldwide, with over 1 million deaths each year. Despite having the genome of many parasites sequenced, almost half of their genes are of unknown function. There are still major gaps in our understanding of host-parasite interactions and disease transmission by vectors. Our research aims to uncover how circadian clocks regulate parasitic diseases. In humans, circadian clocks regulate multiple aspects of physiology, including sleep-wake cycles, metabolism, and immune defense. Circadian biology leads to body rhythms experienced by the pathogens that infect humans. In addition to sensing host rhythms, we recently discovered that parasites which cause devastating health burdens such as malaria and sleeping sickness diseases also have their own intrinsic clocks. The clocks of parasites regulate core biological functions from metabolism to the cell cycle, and the discovery of the existence of their clocks serves as an opportunity to access the molecular mechanisms regulating their rhythmic biology. The aim of this proposal is to identify parasite clock genes and test the biological impact of circadian clocks of parasites to infection and transmission using a variety of innovative approaches.
Role: Students joining our lab to tackle this project will learn about circadian biology and parasitic diseases. We will provide training in quantitative methods for behavioral analysis, bioinformatics, mouse experiments, and cell culture of parasites.
Qualifications: Students should have a strong understanding of molecular biology, ideally with some immunology and host-pathogen interactions.
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Biological & Health Sciences Digital Humanities and Data Science