Conveners
Parasites & pathogens
- Josephine Reyes ()
The artemisinins are our most effective class of antimalarials, and are the internationally recommended drugs for treating malaria. This class of antimalarials has been an important factor in reducing mortality due to malaria globally. However, the emergence of resistance to this most effective and widely used class of antimalarials threatens this progress. Despite their high efficacy the...
Traditionally the study of host response to an infection has focussed on the effect of the pathogen on host health and the ability of the host immune system to clear the pathogen. In this paradigm the host experiences an initial reduction in health (assessed by suitable metrics e.g. temperature rise, weight loss, subjective feelings of ill health) as the pathogen load in the body increases....
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites from genus Plasmodium that kills an average of a half a million people around the world annually. Plasmodium sporozoites are injected to humans by mosquitoes during their probing for blood. Injected sporozoites migrate to liver and invade hepatocytes. The liver stage that lasts 7 to 10 days is a target for vaccine development for...
Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a ubiquitous human pathogen composed of over 230 different molecular sequence types. GAS is responsible for a broad spectrum of diseases - from superficial infections of the skin and throat to life-threatening invasive infections and post-infection sequelae. Even though most GAS infections are mild and easily treated, GAS-related disease remains a major cause...
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects hepatocytes, the cells making up to 80% of the human liver mass. HBV infection disorders cellular function of these cells that eventually leads to liver cancer and high mortality of the host. Despite of the availability of prophylactic vaccine, HBV infection remains a major global health issue with more than 240 million people chronically infected worldwide. The...
