CANCELLED: Have it my way! How intracellular parasites remodel your cells to their needs

This event has been cancelled.

Intracellular parasites, such as Plasmodium falciparum or Toxoplasma gondii remodel the host cells they infect to survive within a human host. To do that, they export or inject a variety of proteins into their host cells to build their niche.

In this talk I will focus on the severe human malaria causing parasite P. falciparum and how it remodels its host red blood cell (RBC). Specifically, I will talk about the rapid expansion of a family of ~20 parasite kinases that are exported into the RBC in only some Plasmodium species, and which’s presence is linked to hypervirulence in humans.

Using a combination of genetics, biochemical and cell biological techniques, we explore the evolution of the kinase family from a single non-exported ancestor that is present in all ~200 Plasmodium species, investigate their function in host-pathogen interaction and explore single compounds that can inhibit the whole kinase fam.