Parasite-host interactions that govern malaria infection and disease

PI: Ellen Bushell, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Biology
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The Bushell lab is interested in the role of malaria parasite exported proteins in host-parasite interactions.

The malaria parasite invades and grows within red blood cells, which is the cause of malaria disease. The disease progression for any one malaria infection is determined by the interaction between the parasite and its host. Exported parasite proteins are at the coalface of these interactions.

The overall goal with the research in our lab is to better understand the molecular mechanisms through which parasite exported proteins interacts with its host. We do so by primarily using the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei in vivo infection model.

We use high-throughput phenotyping methods that combine pooled transfections and barcode sequencing technology to phenotype pools of ~100 of gene knock-out mutants in parallel (Gomes & Bushell et al. 2015, Bushell, Gomes and Sanderson et al. 2018). 

We are currently recruiting highly motivated students and Postdocs to join our young and expanding team. If you are interested in developing and applying cutting-edge reverse genetics for the study of malaria parasite host interactions, please get in touch (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Photo credit: Mattias Petterson.