The research in my laboratory studies the biology of malaria parasites and phenomena associated with this disease in human populations. Malaria has always had a major impact on humans and continues to be a leading cause of death and disease worldwide. Every 30 seconds someone, probably a child, dies from malaria.
Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium.
The disease malaria is due to repeated cycles of the parasite's growth in and destruction of the host's erythrocytes. The blood-stage development of malaria parasites is initiated by invasion of merozoites into susceptible erythrocytes. Sequential involvement of mediators is demonstrated by how merozoites interact with an erythrocyte. Although functions of the apical complex proteins are not well understood, some specific receptor-ligand interactions are known to occur for the merozoites to first attach to and then invade erythrocytes. Because the invasion process is essential for the parasite's survival and the merozoite adhesion molecules that mediate the process are exposed on the merozoite surface during invasion, these adhesion molecules are candidates for asexual-stage malaria vaccines.