Operation Cell Division: Divergent kinases at work in Plasmodium

Monday, November 11, 2024 at 12 PM EST

Prof. Rita Tewari
Professor of Parasite Cell Biology, University of Nottingham, UK

ABSTRACT:

Cell division is the central process enabling organisms to proliferate, propagate and survive. Extensive fundamental understanding of cell division mechanisms exist in model eukaryotes like mammalian and yeast systems. Evolutionarily divergent organisms, such as Plasmodium - the causative agent of malaria – present very different set of divergent signaling molecules like kinases, that are not only divergent but also lack some conserved molecules involved in cell cycle and proliferation.  The seminar will illustrate how these divergent kinases are involved in different process of parasite proliferation mainly focusing on the transmission stages of the parasite within mosquito host.

BIO:

Rita Tewari is Professor of Parasite Cell Biology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Research in her group aims to analyze parasite proteins, in particular kinases, phosphatases and other novel proteins involved in parasite signaling pathways, development and cell division. Work in her group involves uses rodent malaria model Plasmodium berghei. Her work is funded by MRC, BBSRC, EMBO, British Council, Erasmus, Wellcome Trust. She has just been awarded European Research Council Advance grant (2023-2028).

She started to study the malaria parasite at Imperial College, London, and established first genome wide functional screen on kinases in Plasmodium.  Her present focus is to understand atypical cell division processes in Plasmodium, mainly parasite stages that are developed and proliferate in mosquito host. The basic processes, whether it’s a human cell or a mouse cell or a parasite cell, are more or less the same. For Rita, that’s the beauty of biology: there are no boundaries if you want to ask simple questions – how does the cell divide? How can I make the cell stop? She can sit at the microscope for hours and people think – “what is there?” – but she still gets excited by the same single parasite cell biology because every time you see a cell it looks different, it has something else to show you.

WEBSITE:

https://tewarilab.co.uk/home