Malaria*

Plasmodium vivax is the most widely distributed form of human malaria, with over 13M cases globally. The evolutionary origins of this parasite are not well understood, because it has long been thought that it was eliminated from its place of origin in sub-Saharan Africa. The recent discovery of low levels of vivax malaria in central Africa by our collaborators Jon Juliano and Steve Meshnick at UNC opens the door for the first time to studying this ancestral population. The goal of this project is to reconstruct the “out of Africa” co-migration of this important human parasite as it spread throught the tropics globally. A second project, in collaboration with Steve Haase, is examining gene expression during the erythrocytic cycle in P. vivax. Because P. vivax cannot be cultured long-term, these studies are based on blood draws from patients. The goal of this project is to understand how genetic variation in parasite populations influences gene expression.

*this project is no longer accepting students.

COVID-19 Sequencing