Malaria Infection, Superinfection and Co-infections: From Simple Models to Complex Interactions
Event Details
- Type
- Special Seminar Series
- Speaker(s)
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Maria Mota, Ph.D., leader, Malaria Unit, Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Lisbon
- Speaker bio(s)
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Despite renewed eradication efforts from the international community, malaria still exerts an enormous disease burden, with nearly half the planet's population at risk of infection. Within the human host, the disease-causing Plasmodium parasites pass through two distinct lifecycle stages, each in a different cellular environment. During the liver stage, a single Plasmodium sporozoite will invade a hepatocyte, and while sheltered there, supposedly undetected by the host, gives rise to thousands of new parasites, which will go on to initiate the subsequent blood stage of infection. While only 10 to 20 new parasites will be generated inside an erythrocyte, consecutive cycles of cell lysis and reinfection causing a potent host response, as well as the symptoms of malaria. The host contribution to infection outcome, on both the cellular and organismal levels has recently moved to center stage. Dr. Mota's lab has identified hepatocyte molecules that modulate the success of liver stage infection, and showed that distinct host factors, not just the parasite itself, drive the onset and severity of diverse malaria syndromes. Their ongoing work indicates that the web of host-Plasmodium interactions is densely woven, with liver stage-mediated innate immune system activation, host nutritional status and an antagonistic relationship between the two parasite stages themselves all working to modulate the balance between parasite replication and human health.
Dr. Mota earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in biology and immunology, respectively, at Porto University in Portugal. She completed her Ph.D. in 1998 in molecular parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research and University College London. She was a postdoctoral fellow from 1999 to 2001 at the New York University Langone Medical Center, and became a prinicpal investigator at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science in Portugal in 2002. From 2005 to 2010 Dr. Mota was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar, and since 2005 she has been an invited professor at the University of Lisbon's medical school and leader of the Malaria Unit at the school's Institute of Molecular Medicine. Dr. Mota is a recipient of many awards, including Young Investigator Awards from the European Molecular Biology Assocation and the European Science Foundation. She is on the editorial boards of Cellular Microbiology, PLoS Pathogens and the International Journal for Parasitology.
- Open to
- Public
- Reception
- Refreshments, 3:45 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., Lower Level Greenberg Building (CRC)
- Contact
- Jill Benz
- Phone
- (212) 327-7244
- Sponsor
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Jill Benz
(212) 327-7244
benzj@rockefeller.edu - Readings
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http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=3029