| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Laura Knoll Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology |
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Research area Studying the host/pathogen interactions of protozoan parasites, including Toxoplasma gondii, the causative agent of toxoplasmosis, and T. gondii‘s diarrhea-causing cousins Cryptosporidium parvum and Entamoeba histolytica. Using the latest technologies, including next-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry, to uncover parasite and host genes that are necessary for invasive or chronic infection in animals. The research group then uses biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology to define how and why these pathogen and host genes are important.
What excites you about your work?
“I am really excited about two things: my patent with WARF to study the sexual development of toxoplasma outside of cats and not having to use cats in research. That will allow us to do our research in cell cultures and figure out this fundamental developmental biology pathway and these species’ specificity. The other thing I’m excited about is the project we’re doing with David Beebe’s lab to make little artificial guts next to artificial blood vessels, so we can put parasites in guts and human immune vessels in blood and monitor immune responses. The projects merge because we think sexual development in toxoplasma will work better if the intestinal structure has a 3-D architecture.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“I would really like to be able to develop a cat vaccine (projective immune boost) that people could give their cats to block transmission of toxoplasmosis and help pregnant people feel comfortable with their cats. That would be awesome.”
Prof. Knoll is an excellent partner to WARF. WARF has supported her work and looks forward to the next steps in the development of toxoplasma understanding and development.
– Andy DeTienne, WARF, Director of Licensing
Want to learn more?
Andy DeTienne, [email protected], 608.960.9857