The first participants have been enrolled in Webuye, Kenya, in the WASP study, an observational study of antenatal syphilis. Congratulations to Dr Laktabai and the study team for getting this study off the ground!

Assumpta’s been awarded a graduate-student educational enrichment award to immerse herself in a Kiswahili course in Nairobi this summer.

Safari nzuri!

Kelsey has two recent accomplishments:

1. She’s ticked the final boxes to transition from the MSPH program and become a full-fledged PhD student in Epidemiology (at UNC). Pending receipt of the piece of paper granting her the MSPH, of course.
2. She’s also been awarded a Pre-dissertation travel award from UNC, to allow her to travel to Kenya this summer, meet with entomologists and field epidemiologists, observe specimen collection, and build her bona fides in malaria epidemiology.

Congrats on both points to Kelsey.

Congratulations to the EPiTOMISE Homa Bay-based study team for enrolling the first child participants in the trial. The EPiTOMISE study comparing malaria chemoprevention strategies in children with sickle-cell anemia in Kenya.

After 1.5 years of planning, the first participant was enrolled and randomized on January 29, and several more have followed soon after. Congratulations and thanks to our team members in Homa Bay and Eldoret.

Colleagues in the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium have published in Lancet Infectious Diseases a comprehensive trio of reviews on the state of the science of malaria in pregnancy.

The reviews are focused around the Burden, pathology, and costs, prevention, and treatment and reflect the work of the prior 10 years of the Gates Foundation-funded Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium.

Joe Saelens joined the lab about a month ago to start investigating P falciparum pathogenesis in sickle-trait red blood cells. Welcome to the world of malaria parasites Joe!

Kelsey Sumner, current MSPH/PhD student in Epidemiology at UNC and recent graduate of Duke with a degree in global health, has joined us to analyze spatial variation in malaria parasites in Western Kenya. Welcome Kelsey!

Lauren, a UPGG rotation student, has joined Steve Haase’s lab and is cutting her teeth analyzing RNA-seq data from P falciparum time-series experiments. Welcome to parasitology Lauren!

The 1st Annual Eukaryotic Pathogenesis Investigators Colloquia Symposium was held May 26 at Duke University Medical Center.

The event welcomed triangle-based and external investigators to discuss research into the pathogenesis of human disease caused by fungi and parasites.

Fungal Keynote speaker Mairi Noverr PhD of LSU Health Science Center presented interactions between pathogenic fungi and bacteria as causes of sepsis, while Parasitology Keynote speaker Rick Fairhurst MD PhD of NIAID presented recent progress defining the clinical and molecular correlates of antimalarial drug resistance in Cambodia.

Additional speakers included:

• Maitreya Dunham PhD, University of Washington
• Teresa O’Meara PhD, University of Toronto
• Jon Juliano MD MSPH, University of North Carolina
• Emily Derbyshire PhD, Duke University

The EPIC Symposium was supported by the Dean’s Office through the EPIC and Duke Malaria Investigators Group interdisciplinary colloquia and by the Tri-Institutional Molecular Mycology and Pathogenesis Training Program.

Congratulations as well to Hoan Ngo of the Vo-Dinh lab of the Pratt School, an affiliate member of the Collaboratory. Hoan has defended his thesis focused on the development and application of nanodiagnostic platforms and will soon be awarded a PhD in Biomedical Engineering.