Functional analysis of molecular mechanisms associated with invasion of erythrocytes by human malaria parasite

The main objective of this project is to explore methods of high throughput functional genomics to analyze molecular mechanisms associated with the invasion machinery by which the human malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum invade its host erythrocytes. These mechanisms are highly unique to this organism and thus can be explored as new targets for malaria intervention strategies. For these studies we chose the approach of chemical genomics in which we analyze the genome-wide transcriptional responses of the parasite cells to small molecular inhibitors that affect the parasite invasion process. ARC 11/05