Host–pathogen Interaction Puns

Hi all! Can anyone speak to the quality of the course Host-Pathogen Interactions (BIO432S) with Steve Haase? Or just Haase as a professor? Just need another (easy lol) high-level Bio course and might have a conflict with Sensory Biology, which was my first choice.

Hello Reddit!

My name is Alexis Kaushansky and I serve as a principal investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research. My research studies the interactions between humans and pathogens, with a particular focus on malaria. The malaria parasite and other infectious diseases that burden the world cannot survive independently. To cause sickness and travel through the population, they must appropriate resources from the people they infect. Our work aims to identify what pathogens need from their host and use this knowledge to prevent and ultimately eliminate malaria.

When malaria parasites are transmitted from mosquito to human, they are first deposited into the skin, then quickly travel to the liver. In the liver, each parasite replicates tens of thousands of times within the confines of a single hepatocyte, a cell in the liver. During this stage of infection, the parasite causes no clinical symptoms, yet elimination of the parasite in the liver prevents disease and transmission and can even elicit sterile immunity from subsequent infection. Our work focuses on the basic question of how the malaria parasite is able to modify its human liver environment in order to counteract host defenses and ensure for its own survival.

At CIDResearch, we breed thousands of research grade mosquitoes each week in order to power our bench research projects. Our work critically depends on malaria parasite infection in mosquitoes and production of sporozoites for lab experiments. We maintain state-of-the-art insectaries that breed and house Anopheles mosquitoes.

Here are a few of our recent publications:

[EDIT] Host-based Prophylaxis Successfully Targets Liver Stage Malaria Parasites. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25648263

Malaria parasites target the hepatocyte receptor EphA2 for successful host infection. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26612952

To mark April 25 World Malaria Day, I’m taking questions on the research underway to better understand and combat this ancient disease. I will be back at 12 pm ET to answer your questions, looking forward to it!

VERIFICATION: https://twitter.com/CIDResearch/status/724627998725443584

[EDIT] Thanks so much for all of the thoughtful questions -- the time really flew by! It was great to spend a little bit of world malaria day with you. I'll try to answer a few more questions throughout the day, so please keep them coming! If you are interested in learning a bit more about the Center for Infectio