Mapping DNA Damage and Genome Replication in Malaria Parasites with Artificial Intelligence and Long-read Sequencing

Download PDF

Country: UK

Type: Ph.D. Studentship

Deadline: January 03, 2025

Details: https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/48668/

 

Applications are invited for a fully-funded 4-year PhD studentship based in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Dr Michael Boemo starting October 2025.

Malaria parasites replicate their genomes very differently to human cells, making genome replication an attractive therapeutic target for antimalarial drugs. The purpose of this research is to develop artificial intelligence software that leverages the power of long-read DNA sequencing to determine the genomic loci of DNA damage caused by these drugs and how this damage changes the movement of replication forks throughout the genome.

The student will have the opportunity to learn, or improve upon, the development of artificial intelligence for translational research in a supportive and collaborative environment.

More information about the Boemo Group is available at:

https://www.boemogroup.org

and

https://www.path.cam.ac.uk/graduate/fully-funded-studentships

Funding* will cover the student's stipend at the current Research Council rate and University Fees. The studentship will be funded for four years from October 2025. *The studentships are available to students who qualify for UK Home fees.

Applicants should hold (or expect to obtain) the equivalent of a UK 2.1 or higher in an undergraduate honours or Masters degree in a relevant subject. The studentship is open to those eligible for the Home rate of University fees.

All applications should be made online via the University's Applicant Portal for a PhD in Pathology (BLPA22). Applications should include academic transcripts, CV, statement of purpose and 2 references. An application is only complete when all supporting documents, including the 2 academic references, are submitted. It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure their referees submit their references before the closing date. Please also explain your motivation why you wish to pursue a PhD in this area, outline your research interests and background, and describe the qualities and experience you will bring to the role.

Please quote reference PK43591 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

8th International Giardia & Cryptosporidium Conference (IGCC)

Download PDF

 Country: Australia

Type: Conference

Registration Deadline: November 30, 2024

Event Date: February 23-26, 2025

Details: https://www.igcc2025.au/

 

We are delighted to announce the 8th International Giardia & Cryptosporidium Conference (IGCC)  from 23rd February to 26th February 2025 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Since 2014, the International Giardia and Cryptosporidium Conferences (IGCC) have provided an international platform for researchers and practitioners involved in the study of these parasites. IGCC has become an established barometer of the advances made in confronting and controlling Giardia and Cryptosporidium infections throughout the world and covers a breadth of disciplines including:

• Molecular and cellular biology
• Genomics and systems biology
• Taxonomy and phylogenetics
• Population genetics, diagnostics and epidemiology
• Host-parasite interactions and immunology
• Pathogenesis of disease
• New treatment development
• Improved control strategies and public health policies

Major research program themes

• Diagnostics and detection from environment to farm to clinic
• Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental transmission and control
• Infection management in humans and animals
• Advances in drug and vaccine discovery and alternative treatments
• Indigenous and Global Health
• Mechanisms of disease and host-pathogen interactions
• Virulence and Immunology
• Infection and in vitro growth models
• Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Advanced methods development

Equity and Diversity:

IGCC2025 is committed to broad representative and diversity amongst its delegates and conference speakers. We are committed to gender parity among our invited speakers and session chairs and to provide a welcoming and engaging conference experience to delegates across our international research community. We are also a family friendly conference and will provide a parents room for delegates during the event.

A primary focus of the conference is to provide delegates with outstanding value, an enriched program and a number of memorable experiences within and alongside the conference itself. This will include social events that provide delegates with an exceptional opportunity to engage in uniquely Australian cultural activities and world-class scientists. We will be hosting the event in the newly built Melbourne Connect conference facility within the University of Melbourne campus and on the northern edge of Melbourne’s central business district. All of this will be available at an affordable cost and, we hope to welcome all of you to Melbourne and look forward to seeing you all once again.

Virtual Symposium on Apicomplexan Parasites Research (Apicomplexa-2025)

Download PDF

Mode of Conduction: Online

Type: Symposium

Registration Deadline: November 30, 2024

Event Date: January 22-23, 2025

Details: https://apicomplexaconference.com/

 

Virtual Symposium on Apicomplexan Parasites Research (Apicomplexa-2025) will be held online on January 22-23, 2025, chaired by Vern B. Carruthers, PhD, University of Michigan Medical School, MI, United States and is organized by Scirease. This symposium aims to convene distinguished experts from around the globe to explore and discuss the most recent research and advancements in the study of apicomplexan parasites.

This two-day virtual conference is designed to provide a platform for both senior researchers and emerging scientists to engage with each other, exchange ideas, and advance the field. The focus will be on significant research findings related to Plasmodium, Toxoplasma, and Cryptosporidium.

The virtual nature of the conference will enable participants to attend and engage in discussions from their respective locations, thereby promoting global collaboration and the exchange of knowledge. The symposium will feature presentations from eminent experts in parasitic infections, who will share their pioneering research, innovations, and insights into the latest developments in the field. Researchers, clinicians, and professionals with an interest in parasitic diseases are invited to contribute in understanding, preventing, and treating infections such as Malaria, Toxoplasmosis, and Cryptosporidiosis.

We look forward to your participation and eagerly anticipate welcoming you to Apicomplexa-2025 on January 22-23, 2025.

Seminar on Mapping One Health Initiatives in Latin America

Download PDF

Mode of Conduction: Hybrid (Online and at University of Guelph, Canada)

Type: Seminar

Speaker: Natalia Cediel Becerra

Event Date and Registration: December 04, 2024

Details: https://onehealth.uoguelph.ca/one-health-seminar-series/

The One Health seminar series showcases the depth and breadth of One Health research at the University of Guelph, and beyond! These 50-minute talks feature a 30-minute presentation by a One Health practitioner, followed by an audience Q&A. Everyone is welcome, particularly graduate students and faculty.

Presentation Description: 

Mapping One Health (OH) initiatives and stakeholders in Latin America is a key first step in the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) One Health policy.

International agencies such as PAHO and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) have strengthened the capacity of many countries around the prevention of zoonoses for more than 6 decades, creating a good baseline for OH implementation. There are many existing OH initiatives already in place in Latin countries within the public and private sectors, including within non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

In July 2022, public health and agricultural defense authorities from countries in the Americas met in Brazil to develop a regional baseline regarding the use of the One Health approach in intersectoral actions, with an eye towards improving management of public health problems at the human-animal-environment interface. Myriad examples of multisectoral communication, collaboration, coordination and capacity building regarding control and prevention of zoonoses control, food safety, and AMR programs were discussed. Interestingly, most of these initiatives were not identified as One Health.  

There is already installed capacity for multisectoral cooperation mechanisms that should be strengthened to better face future health emergencies. Mapping stakeholders and initiatives lays the groundwork for OH implementation in Latin America and is a best practice for OH governance.

International Conference on Veterinary Medicine 2025

Download PDF

Country and Location: NH Vienna Airport Conference Center, Vienna, Austria

Type: Conference

Theme: Veterinary Medicine Innovations, Applications, and Future Trends

Event Date: June 19-20, 2025

Early Bird Registration Deadline: November 29, 2024

Details: https://scisynopsisconferences.com/animal-science/

 

Scisynopsis warmly invites attendees from all over the world to attend the "International Conference on Veterinary Medicine" in Vienna, Austria, from June 19 to 20, 2025. Under the theme "Veterinary Medicine Innovations, Applications, and Future Trends," this event will include insightful keynote presentations, oral talks, poster presentations, and exhibitions. The congress is a venue for the most recent innovations, creative concepts, and research results in veterinary medicine and science. Early-career scientists have a great chance to interact with a diverse group of researchers and decision-makers, fostering professional development and collaboration. Participants will profit from different meetings, including fabulous addresses, feature talks, extraordinary meetings, studios, and contributed papers. We invite delegates, chiefs, co-chiefs, teachers, researchers, academic administrators, PhD understudies, and scientists to take part. The Veterinary Medication 2025 is worldwide perceived, and we genuinely want to believe that you can carve out opportunity in your bustling timetable to join in, share your bits of knowledge on a subject of your decision, and add to the progress of this occasion. We anticipate seeing you in Vienna!

Investigating the contribution of attached Leishmania parasite forms in human infections

Download PDF

Country: UK

Type: Ph.D. Project

Deadline: December 13, 2024

Details: https://www.dimen.org.uk/applications

 

About the Project

Leishmania parasites are responsible for causing a collection of devastating diseases affecting millions of people worldwide. They are spread via infected female sand flies, who feed on blood to produce eggs. Inside the sand fly, Leishmania proliferate and eventually differentiate into one of two forms. The metacyclic form parasites are the motile, infectious cells that invade human macrophages and the second, haptomonad form remains less well characterized. Haptomonad form parasites attach to the sand fly stomodeal valve, maintaining infections after a bloodmeal, and causing damage to the valve, which improves regurgitation during a feed (Yanase et al. 2024, Serafim et al. 2018). Interestingly, recent data shows that haptomonad form cells may also infect macrophages and form a large part of the infectious dose (Catta-Preta et al. 2024). This implicates haptomonad form Leishmania as an important and understudied component of human infections. The cellular signalling involved in commitment to becoming a haptomonad and mechanism of attachment remains elusive. You will uncover how attached Leishmania contribute to infection by addressing the following objectives:

• Determine infectivity of haptomonad form Leishmania 

• Uncover the mechanism by which Leishmania establish an attachment 

• Explore strategies to disrupt disease transmission 

This project will entail a range of cutting-edge technologies in genetic manipulation, protein-protein interactions and cell signalling pathway deconvolution. You will expand a barcoded knockout library for the development and optimization of an attachment assay. Next generation sequencing will produce results for quantitative analysis of barcode representation.  Protein-protein interactions will be explored by expression of Leishmania extracellular domains as biotinylated proteins expressed in HEX cells. These will be clustered around streptavidin to make tetramers to probe for attachment to PSG and sand fly culture lines. Validation and characterization of outputs will involve genetic manipulation, cell staining, flow cytometry and proteomic methods.

Impact and Novelty:

This research will provide an improved understanding of the parasite life cycle, specifically disease transmission. There are no vaccines or drugs which can prevent infection. New transmission blocking strategies depend on a comprehensive knowledge of parasite-insect interaction. The primary supervisor has Leishmania mutants which can be used to produce cell cultures containing an exceptionally high proportion of this life cycle stage which is otherwise rare. These, along with proteomic and transcriptomic datasets generated using them, provide a unique tool. Two novel methods will be used for assessing attachment, a kinome-wide barcoded library (Baker et al. 2021) and a Leishmania cell surface library (Roberts et al. 2024). 

Supervision and support:

The supervisory team combines expert knowledge in molecular parasitology and host-parasite interactions through cellular signalling. The primary supervisor is the recent recipient of a career development award and will provide much of the practical training. During the project you will gain training in a variety of both lab-based skills and computer-based analysis of data. Our laboratories provide a supportive and collaborative environment in which a PhD student can expand their range and learn new techniques.

Supervisor: Nicola Baker

Second supervisor: Prof. Gavin Wright

Benefits of being in the DiMeN DTP:

This project is part of the Discovery Medicine North Doctoral Training Partnership (DiMeN DTP), a diverse community of PhD students across the North of England researching the major health problems facing the world today. Our partner institutions (Universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, York and Sheffield) are internationally recognised as centres of research excellence and can offer you access to state-of-the-art facilities to deliver high impact research.

We are very proud of our student-centred ethos and committed to supporting you throughout your PhD. As part of the DTP, we offer bespoke training in key skills sought after in early career researchers, as well as opportunities to broaden your career horizons in a range of non-academic sectors.

Being funded by the MRC means you can access additional funding for research placements, training opportunities or internships in science policy, science communication and beyond.

References:

Yanase, R., Pruzinova, K., Owino, B.O. et al. Discovery of essential kinetoplastid-insect adhesion proteins and their function in Leishmania-sand fly interactions. Nat Commun 15, 6960 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51291-z

Serafim, T.D., Coutinho-Abreu, I.V., Oliveira, F. et al. Sequential blood meals promote Leishmania replication and reverse metacyclogenesis augmenting vector infectivity. Nat Microbiol 3, 548–555 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0125-7

Carolina Catta-Preta, Kashinath Ghosh, David Sacks et al. Single-cell atlas of Leishmania major development in the sandfly vector reveals the heterogeneity of transmitted parasites and their role in infection, 18 March 2024, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4022188/v1

Baker, N., Catta-Preta, C.M.C., Neish, R. et al. Systematic functional analysis of Leishmania protein kinases identifies regulators of differentiation or survival. Nat Commun 12, 1244 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21360-8

Roberts AJ, Ong HB, Clare S, Brandt C, Harcourt K, Takele Y, Ghosh P, Toepp A, Waugh M, Matano D, Färnert A, Adams E, Moreno J, Mbuchi M, Petersen C, Mondal D, Kropf P, Wright GJ. A panel of recombinant Leishmania donovani cell surface and secreted proteins identifies LdBPK_323600.1 as a serological marker of symptomatic infection. mBio 15:e00859-24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.00859-24

Funding Notes

Studentships are fully funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) for 4yrs. Funding will cover tuition fees, stipend (£19,237 for 2024/25) and project costs. We also aim to support the most outstanding applicants from outside the UK and are able to offer a limited number of full studentships to international applicants.

Studentships commence: 15 Sep 2025

Good luck!

Investigating the Role and Regulation of Biomolecular Condensate Enabling Trypanosome Parasites Host Adaptation

Download PDF

 Country: UK

Type: Ph.D. Project

Deadline: December 13, 2024

Details: https://www.dimen.org.uk/applications

 

About the Project

Applications are invited to a PhD project investigating RNA:protein (mRNP) condensates formed during pathogen differentiation and host adaptation. 

Working environment

Our team provides a collaborative environment in which the PhD student can thrive with individual support, expand their intellectual range and learn new techniques with the Technology Facility at their disposal. The PhD student will join a team of researchers in the York Biomedical Research Institute investigating cellular processes in parasites that cause African trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis. York is internationally renowned  for Parasitology research, and is ranked in the Top 10 for both Research and Teaching. The first to attain (and retain) an Athena Swan Gold award in the UK, our Department provides a positive environment which allows all staff and students to contribute fully, flourish and excel.

Supervisor: Dr. Mathieu Cayla

Second supervisor: Dr. Pegine Walrad

Project 

Kinetoplastid parasites transition between insect and mammalian hosts, requiring quick adaptation through post-transcriptional gene regulation without extensive transcriptional control1. We recently demonstrated that quorum sensing of T. brucei in the mammalian bloodstream generates a specific and programmed hierarchy of biomolecular condensate assembly. These condensates have distinct components, including kinase regulators that contribute to downstream signalling of key pathways essential for life cycle progression2. 

The Aim of this project is to understand molecular regulation of parasite condensates by:

• Revealing the protein signature and architecture of biomolecular condensates.
• Investigating protein modifications regulating formation and stability of condensates.
• Identifying mRNAs critical to condensate formation.

Key responsibilities

The student will use super-resolution microscopy and cryoEM to visualise and quantify the extent and diversity of biomolecular condensate during the trypanosomes life cycle. Furthermore, the student will purify the different types of condensates using our established complementary approaches of UV crosslinking, protein tagging and proximity labelling. The student will identify modifications of proteins associated with these condensates via Mass Spectroscopy. They will use a kinome-wide RNAi library and perform single point mutations using CRISPr to investigate condensate regulatory mechanisms  during the parasite lifecycle. They will identify the mRNA and modifications associated with granules using next generation and nanopore direct sequencing. Finally, the student will use genetic and chemical tools to destabilise the condensate and examine the impact on parasite development.

Impact

The PhD student will be trained in the quantitative, computational and statistical analyses of -omics data. They will acquire critical transferable skills and professional resilience necessary for the success of this project and their future career. 

This research will reveal the unknown diversity, architecture and regulation of biomolecular condensates in an exceptional tractable model of medical importance. Understanding mRNP regulation will provide critical knowledge of how parasitic diseases persist. This will inform us on how such condensates enable parasites survival, transmission and disease progression. 

Benefits of being in the DiMeN DTP:

This project is part of the Discovery Medicine North Doctoral Training Partnership (DiMeN DTP), a diverse community of PhD students across the North of England researching the major health problems facing the world today. Our partner institutions (Universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, York and Sheffield) are internationally recognised as centres of research excellence and can offer you access to state-of-the-art facilities to deliver high impact research.

We are very proud of our student-centred ethos and committed to supporting you throughout your PhD. As part of the DTP, we offer bespoke training in key skills sought after in early career researchers, as well as opportunities to broaden your career horizons in a range of non-academic sectors.

Being funded by the MRC means you can access additional funding for research placements, training opportunities or internships in science policy, science communication and beyond.