Welcome to our blog!
This is a blog written and maintained by Dr. Kanzok and the students in his lab. We like to talk about new and exciting research being done in the fields of cellular and molecular biology. Seeing as we work up close and personal with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, a lot of what we'll be posting will be about this ancient pathogen and its relatives.
To start us off I thought I would provide some quick facts about malaria:
-Malaria is caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Plasmodium
-Disease transmission occurs via female mosquitos of the genus Anopheles
-3.4 billion people live in parts of the world that are at risk for malaria
-Antimalarial resistance is continuing to spread across the affected areas
Our lab is currently studying the rodent malaria parasite, Plasmodium berghei, as a model to shed light on the biological mechanisms underlying the success of the parasite.
We welcome and encourage discussion so please leave a comment and stay tuned for future posts!
Happy sciencing!
