Kaitlin Turland

I am a first year MPhil student researching malaria parasitology in the Wilson Malaria and Toxoplasma Laboratory. In 2023, 263 million malaria cases culminated in almost 600,000 deaths, most severely affecting young children and pregnant women. Current treatment and prevention strategies are inadequate to control this global burden, due to limited efficacy and the rising prevalence of drug resistant parasites. My project involves characterising the role of a blood stage parasite surface protein (merozoite surface protein 2) in shielding a potential vaccine target from the immune system. I use techniques such as in vitro malaria culturing and transfection, live and fixed cell microscopy, flow cytometry, subcloning, phage display antibody panning, and in silico sequence analysis.