Schistosomiasis pathogenesis from mice to humans

There is a pressing need to improve the understanding of morbidity for schistosomiasis. These parasitic blood flukes afflict over 250 million people worldwide with over 700 million people at risk. For Schistosoma mansoni (a species that causes the intestinal form of schistosomiasis), untreated individuals can develop severe or functional morbidities such as enlarged livers/spleens, periportal fibrosis, oesophageal varices, anaemia, and chronic gut inflammation. The onset and progression of these morbidities is a complex interplay of host genetics and immune response, environmental factors, coinfections, and social determinants. This project is an exciting opportunity to combine work in immunology with epidemiology, providing opportunities to apply computational approaches, experimentally test mechanistic hypotheses found in humans in mice, and gain fieldwork experience in global health research. The candidate will gain skills in both wet lab work and fieldwork in Uganda. You will join multidisciplinary labs at the NIH-NIAID and Oxford.