Whereas Plasmodium asexual parasites are responsible for malarial disease symptoms and pathology, it is the male and female gametocyte stages that are responsible for parasite transmission from humans to mosquitoes. Due to their divergent cell biology and different lifestyle choices, gametocytes are insensitive to most antimalarial drugs. This can lead to the unfortunate situation where a malarial patient can be “cured” of their disease symptoms, but still be infectious to mosquitoes, thus allowing the parasite (and drug resistant alleles) to propagate. My overall research goal is to accelerate the discovery of new therapeutics that prevent parasite transmission. To achieve this, I have four ongoing research projects:

1. Using phenotypic imaging to characterise novel transmission blocking molecules
2. How do gametocytes regulate energy metabolism in their quiescent state?
3. What are the biological differences between male and female gametocytes and can these be exploited?
4. Developing new “open source” tools for better P. falciparum gametocyte culture and mosquito transmission.