Ana M. Rodriguez, PhD

Our lab studies two different parasites: Plasmodium species, which causes malaria; and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease.

Malaria is a devastating disease that causes about 600,000 deaths per year, mainly among children in Africa. There is an urgent need for new strategies to control malaria. However, details of the basic biological processes underlying Plasmodium infection are not well understood. Deeper knowledge would enable faster development of antimalarial drugs and vaccines.

A main focus in our laboratory is malaria-induced inflammatory response and its implications in the pathology of disease, including cerebral malaria and severe anemia.

We also intend to develop effective drugs against Chagas disease. In collaboration with different research groups, selected compounds are being developed in the pre-clinical phase with the aim of finding candidates for clinical trials in chronically-infected patients.