Research/Areas of Interest:
According to WHO’s latest World malaria report, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases and 627 000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2020. This represents about 14 million more cases in 2020 compared to 2019, and 69000 more deaths. Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) is a leading causative agent of malaria, an infectious disease that can be fatal. A vaccine is needed to effectively control malaria and lead towards the total elimination of the disease. Now my thesis is mainly about investigating the potent vaccination candidate for P. falciparum that invades via two distinct ways: sialic acid dependent (SAD) pathways and sialic acid-independent (SAID) pathways. Experimentally, we utilize the phage display by performing four rounds of biopanning process with 50% hematocrit of human RBCs as bait and then screening for T7 bacteriophage to figure out the novel protein ligands residing on the surface of merozoites.
Education
BS, Clinical Pharmacy, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China