Metabolomic analysis and membrane transport proteins in the malaria parasite

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The malaria parasite is a single celled organism which invades the red blood cells of those it infects. There is no vaccine and the parasite is becoming increasingly resistant to the drugs that we have available. There is therefore an urgent need for new antimalarial strategies. Research in this area has been helped by the sequencing of the genome of the parasite. However we still don t know what most of the genes in the parasite do, and it is not a straightforward matter to find out. One of the things hampering us in our efforts to develop new antimalarial drugs is our relatively poor understanding of the sorts of biochemical pathways that the parasite relies on to support its high rate of growth and replication inside the red blood cell, as well the biochemical mechanisms that enable it to becomes drug-resistant. In this study we will use a range of modern analytical techniques to carry out the first detailed survey of the biochemical composition - the so-called metabolome - of the parasite. We will investigate how this changes in response to nutrient deprivation, in response to mutations in genes which play a key role in antimalarial drug resistance and in response to changes in the expression of genes encoding proteins which we believe to be involved in the uptake of nutrients by the parasite. This project will provide us with a wealth of new information about the biochemical make-up of the parasite, and it will provide new insights into the biochemical pathways that are operating and which might be targeted with new drugs. The work is likely to provide new insights into mechanisms of antimalarial drug resistance. It will also form the basis for a strategy that is likely to be extremely useful in helping us to ascribe function to the many genes involved in the biochemistry of this important human pathogen.