Last Updated: 21/01/2025
Parasite offence or host defence? The roles of biological rhythms in malaria infection
Objectives
This interdisciplinary project will break new ground by elucidating to what extent hosts and parasites drive rhythms in infections, how rhythms can be exploited for clinical benefit, and the adaptive significance (evolutionary costs and benefits) of rhythms for parasites.
Biological rhythms appear to be an elegant solution to the challenge of coordinating activities with the consequences of the Earth’s daily and seasonal rotation. The genes and molecular mechanisms underpinning the clocks that drive daily rhythms are well understood. In contrast, the costs and benefits provided by daily rhythms – including how rhythms shape interactions between organisms – remain remarkably poorly understood. One of the most fundamental interactions between organisms is that between hosts and parasites. Why parasites exhibit biological rhythms and how their rhythms are regulated are longstanding questions with no satisfactory answers. This project will focus on malaria parasites and have recently developed some of the required methods and undertaken the pilot work to generate many of the hypotheses that will be tested. Examining the roles of biological rhythms in disease opens up a new arena for studying host-parasite- vector coevolution. Also, integrating disease control interventions into an evolutionary chronobiology framework coudl offer innovative approaches to improving health.
Article: Plasticity in malaria parasite development: mosquito resources influence vector-to-host transmission potentialArticle: Testing the evolutionary drivers of malaria parasite rhythms and their consequences for host–parasite interactions
Nov 2016 — Apr 2024
$1.97M
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