Biography
Mara Lawniczak received her PhD from UCDavis working with David Begun on sexual conflict in Drosophila. After two postdocs, Mara was awarded an MRC Career Development Award and started her lab at Imperial College London in 2012 focused on malaria parasite and mosquito interactions. Mara joined the Malaria Programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2014. Her current work continues to focus on vector parasite interactions and her group uses genomics and transcriptomics to uncover important proteins and pathways involved in successful parasite transmission through the mosquito
Research
Interests:
Genetic variation in Anopheles mosquitoes
1) Impact on impact parasite development
2) Population structure across Africa
3) Evidence of strong selection in the genomes
Understanding parasite behaviors that enhance transmission
1) do mature gametocytes cluster/sequester in the host?
2) how do gametes find each other in the mosquito midgut?
3) Do parasites preferentially mate with non-self?
Collaborations:
1) Abdoulaye Djimde, University of Bamako, Mali
2) Moses Kamya, Makerere University, Uganda
3) Luc Djogbenou, National University of Benin
4) Dziedzom de Sousa, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Ghana
