Whitehead Member Sebastian Lourido studies a group of parasites called the Apicomplexa. These single-celled organisms are among the most common pathogens and are capable of causing devastating diseases in humans and animals, including toxoplasmosis, malaria, and infant diarrhea. Lourido’s laboratory is investigating in particular how the Apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii invades host cells and establishes its site of replication. The work holds great promise for exposing treatable vulnerabilities in the parasite—and in the closely related Plasmodium parasites, which cause malaria and contribute to more than half a million deaths each year.
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