A leading researcher on Plasmodium falciparum-the causative agent of the most severe form of malaria in humans-will share his insights about the parasite at the annual Ritter Lecture on Jan. 29 at 4 p.m. in Room 404B of the Biological Sciences
Building.
Alan Cowman, head of the Division of Infection and Immunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and a professor in the medical biology department at the University of Melbourne, Australia, will give a talk titled “Moving and Renovating: Invasion and Remodeling of the Human Erythrocyte by the Malaria Parasite.” The lecture is open free to the public.
Malaria causes suffering and death for millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The primary aim of Cowman’s work is to understand how the P. falciparum parasite infects humans and the mechanisms it uses to evade host immune responses. Potential vaccines for malaria are targeted to the various stages of the P. falciparum life cycle.
The talk is sponsored by the Hope T. Ritter Jr. Fund in Cellular Biology and by the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.