Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
University of Georgia
Biomolecular condensation underlies the biogenesis of an expanding array of membraneless assemblies, including stress granules (SGs), which form under a variety of cellular stresses. Advances have been made in understanding the molecular grammar of a few scaffold proteins that make up these phases, but how the partitioning of hundreds of SG proteins is regulated remains …
The genomes of kinetoplastids are organized into polycistronic transcription units that are flanked by a modified DNA base (base J, beta-D-glucosyl-hydroxymethyluracil). Previous work established a role of base J in promoting RNA polymerase II (Pol II) termination in Leishmania major and Trypanosoma brucei. We recently identified a PJW/PP1 complex in Leishmania containing a J-binding protein …
The Chagas field has gone >50 years without tangible progress toward new therapies. My colleagues and I have recently reported on a benzoxaborole compound that achieves consistent parasitological cure in experimentally infected mice and in naturally infected non-human primates (NHPs). While these results do not assure success in human clinical trials, they significantly de-risk this …
Acanthamoeba species, Naegleria fowleri, and Balamuthia mandrillaris are opportunistic pathogens that cause a range of brain, skin, eye, and disseminated diseases in humans and animals. These pathogenic free-living amoebae (pFLA) are commonly misdiagnosed and have sub-optimal treatment regimens which contribute to the extremely high mortality rates (>90%) when they infect the central nervous system. To address the unmet medical …
Malaria is a deadly disease caused by the parasite Plasmodium and is transmitted through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes. The sporozoite stage of Plasmodium deposited by mosquitoes in the skin of vertebrate hosts undergoes a phase of mandatory development in the liver before initiating clinical malaria. We know little about the biology of Plasmodium …
RESEARCH WILL BE IN COLLABORATION WITH YALE UNIVERSITY Chet Joyner, PhD, a faculty member in the Center for Vaccines and Immunology and the Center for Tropical and Emerging Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at the University of Georgia, is the recipient of a $1.1 million grant from Open Philanthropy to perform preclinical …
Cripowellins from Crinum erubescens are known pesticidal and have potent antiplasmodial activity. To gain mechanistic insights to this class of natural products, studies to determine the timing of action of cripowellins within the asexual intraerythrocytic cycle of Plasmodium falciparum were performed and led to the observation that this class of natural products induced reversible cytostasis in the ring …
