Barbara Burleigh is a Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She obtained a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Her dissertation research on membrane trafficking and nutrient acquisition in African trypanosomes was conducted at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Burleigh then pursued post-doctoral research at Yale University School of Medicine focused on the mechanisms governing mammalian host cell invasion by the Chagas disease parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, and the role of parasite-elicited calcium signaling in this process.
Current research in the Burleigh lab focuses on metabolism at the T. cruzi-host cell interface with a view to determining how metabolic flexibility impacts intracellular parasitism, tropism, and susceptibility of parasites to small molecule inhibitors.
Dumoulin, P.C. and Burleigh, B.A. 2018. Stress-Induced Proliferation and Cell Cycle Plasticity of Intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi Amastigotes. MBio. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00673-18
Gazos-Lopes, F., Martin, J.L., Dumoulin, P.C., Burleigh, B.A. 2017. Host triacylglycerol fatty acids shape the lipidome of intracellular trypanosomes and modulate their growth. PLoS Pathogens, Dec 27;13(12):e1006800. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006800. PMID: 29281741
Shah-Simpson, S., Lentini, G., Dumoulin, P.C., Burleigh, B.A. 2017. Modulation of host central carbon metabolism and in situ glucose uptake by intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi amastigotes. PLoS Pathogens, Nov 27;13(11):e1006747. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006747. PMID:29176805
Lentini, G., Dos Santos Pacheco, N., B. A. Burleigh. 2017. Targeting host mitochondria: a role for the Trypanosoma cruzi amastigote flagellum. Cellular Microbiology. Nov 8. doi: 10.1111/cmi.12807. PMID: 29119655.
Shah-Simpson, S, Pereira, C.F.A, Dumoulin, P.C., Caradonna, K.L., Burleigh, B.A. 2016. Bioenergetic profiling of Trypanosoma cruzi life stages using Seahorse extracellular flux technology. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 208(2):91-5. PMID:27392747
Li, Y. Shah-Simpson, S., Okrah, K., Belew, A.T., Choi, J., Caradonna, K.L., Padmanabhan, P., Temanni, M. R., Corrada Bravo, H. El-Sayed, N.M. and B. A. Burleigh. 2016. Transcriptome remodeling in Trypanosoma cruzi and human cells during intracellular Infection. PLoS Pathogens 12(4):e1005511. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1005511.