Chromatin barriers in Plasmodium falciparum gene regulation

疟疾是一种主要的世界性疾病，每年造成约200万人死亡。致病因子的基因组现在已经完全测序，但我们仍然对某些基因如何以及为什么在它们的邻居被关闭时被激活知之甚少。我将研究分离这些基因的DNA屏障，以及与这些区域相互作用的蛋白质，以更好地了解这些寄生虫的遗传调控功能。更好地了解疟疾寄生虫的基因调控将有助于我们更好地对抗这种生物和其他生物用来逃避我们免疫系统的伎俩。

Malaria is a major world disease that kills around 2 million people annually. The genome of the causative agent has now been completely sequenced, but we still know very little of how and why some genes are activated while their neighbours are turned off. I will study the DNA barriers that separate such genes, and the proteins that interact with these regions to better understand how genetic regulation functions in these parasites. A better understanding of gene regulation in malaria parasites will help us to better combat the tricks utilised by this and other organisms to elude our immune systems.