Host-Parasite Interactions during Malaria Transmission
Our research group focuses on providing better understanding of the biology relating to parasite development and host-parasite interactions during the malaria transmission stages. Our ultimate goal is to discover novel strategies to hamper malaria transmission. Malaria has tremendous global impact, where nearly half the world’s population is at risk of acquiring the disease.
The parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes the most severe form of malaria, has been estimated to cause almost half a million deaths per year, mainly among young children. The highly complex lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum involves transitioning between a human host and a mosquito vector.
Our lab has set out to generate a detailed understanding of the genetic pathways involved during these key developmental stages both on the parasite and on the host side. To address our specific research aims we use a combination of genetic, molecular and cell biological tools. We have established, and heavily exploit, various methodologies to combine cell biological approaches with targeted isolation of parasites or parasite-host complexes, followed by transcriptional profiling. This is done in close collaboration with the Microbial Single Cell Genomics facility, within the Genomics Platform at Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab), Uppsala as well as the Spatial Omics platform at SciLifeLab in Stockholm. Within the Stockholm University Malaria/Mosquito Facility (SUMF) we have a biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) certified cell culture lab and insectary and are in the unique position of performing infections of Anopheles mosquitoes with the human infecting malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.
