No more hide and seek: 3D human-derived mini-livers to study liver-stage malaria

Project summary

Malaria is caused by a parasite that first replicates in the human liver to establish infection and then spreads to red blood cells. Very little is known about how the parasite replicates in the liver. This is because of the lack of a relevant, human-derived liver model to study the parasite. I propose to use a powerful new technology: 3D mini-livers of human origin known as organoids, to establish a novel model for liver-stage malaria research to study how the parasite replicates in the liver and to test potential new malaria drugs.