The Malaria Genetics Section of the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases conducts basic research on factors that govern the drug response, persistence, and severity of malaria. The work incorporates strategies of linkage mapping, field population surveys, gene manipulation and gene product analysis with a view toward the discovery of fundamental biological information that will be of use in the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and control measures against the disease. The research of the section focuses mainly upon Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most severe form of malaria and produces an estimated 2-3 million deaths each year from the disease. Current projects include investigations of: 1) the mechanisms of drug resistance, particularly the resistance of malaria strains to such crucial anti-parasite drugs as chloroquine, quinine, and mefloquine; 2) gene transcription switches and DNA recombination events responsible for antigenic variation and immune evasion by parasitized red blood cells; 3) epidemiology of hemoglobins C and S (sickle-cell) and their protection against severe malaria in African children; 4) genes involved in the development of parasite sexual stages that are required for transmission of infection through the mosquito.
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