Evolution and Adaptation of Plasmodium vivax

‘Infectious diseases represent the second cause of death worldwide despite the remarkable advances in their management and in medical research during the 20th century. One reason is the periodic emergence of new infectious diseases in human populations. The bottleneck for an emergent disease to thrive in the new host is the pathogen`s potential for adaptation to the novel environmental conditions. Understanding and elucidating how these pathogens adapt to new environments is a major prerequisite for tackling the emergence of new infectious diseases.

We propose to generate a radically global understanding of how pathogens adapt to new environments, using Plasmodia as model system, by integrating cutting-edge knowledge and technology in the field of genomics, population genetics, informatics and evolution. The malaria agent Plasmodium vivax, albeit less malignant than Plasmodium falciparum, is responsible for severe and incapacitating clinical symptoms with significant effects on human health. P. vivax is an ideal model because during its evolutionary history it has emerged in different hosts (i.e. chimpanzees/gorillas) and repeatedly colonized new human populations. It has thus shown ability to successfully adapt to different environments. The AIM of this proposal is to study the pathogen evolutionary history the different P. vivax clades through the generation of the first P. vivax-like genomes and of new African P. vivax genomes. ‘