Last Updated: 25/02/2025
Evolutionary and ecological drivers of synchrony between malaria parasites
Objectives
This project will use an animal model system to investigate how changes in the parasites’ environment and host-parasite interactions shape the harmonisation of parasite cell cycles, and how this affects parasite fitness and in turn, host health.
Plasmodium parasites represent a global health concern, causing malaria in over 200 million people annually. With widespread drug resistance and no effective vaccine, insights from basic biology are urgently needed to inform novel intervention strategies. Here, Alíz T. Owolabi takes an evolutionary-ecological perspective to examine one of the most glaring, yet unexplored feature of malaria parasites; the synchronicity of their blood stage development. In the Hippocratic era, this trait was used to diagnose malaria, as the coordinated burst of infected red blood cells every 2 or 3 days resulted in periodic episodes of fever in patients. However, the level of synchrony is not constant during infections, or across species, and can be disrupted by drug treatment. Elucidating the ecological and evolutionary drivers behind this parasite strategy will identify points of vulnerability which can be exploited for clinical benefit.
Oct 2018 — Nov 2022
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