Dr Bopp is a senior research scientist with over 20 years of experience in malaria research ranging from gene expression, virulence factors, host and parasite genetics, to molecular mechanism of drug resistance. Her current interests in the lab focus on the evolution of drug resistance in malaria parasites. She especially works on identifying and describing new targets for antimalarial drugs and characterizing existing resistance in the field.
Dr. Diallo is a Medical Biologist and Researcher in the International Center for Research and Training in Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS) and Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal. His main area of expertise lies in malaria field epidemiological studies, operational research and surveillance. Currently, he is the Senegal coordinator of the PMI-supported Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring in Africa (PARMA) hub in Senegal focusing on the evaluation of the efficacy…
El Hadji is a Vector Biologist and Medical Entomologist, and his research interests encompass various aspects related to insect vector ecology, population genetics and genomics, evolution and applied consequences of insecticide resistance and the control of mosquito vectors of human disease, especially malaria’s vectors. He provides technical support to NMCPs and trains their staff in designing and implementing targeted vector control interventions to eliminate active foci based on the Integrated…
Kate is using a set of Plasmodium falciparum parasites collected from patients in Senegal over the past 17 years and their corresponding sequencing data to evaluate how antimalarial drug resistance trends in Senegal have changed over time. For her project, Kate is adapting these parasites to in vitro culturing conditions and phenotypically assessing them for drug resistance and fitness. These phenotypic assessments will determine if the changes in drug resistance…
Anna works as part of the Diversity project to investigate plasmodium genetic diversity and surveillance of drug resistance markers in Senegal and Burkina Faso. She is also involved in artemisinin resistance mechanism research, though the genetic editing of kelch13 mutations and phenotypic validation in p. falciparum.
PARMA-Hub is a Capacity Development program, and Awa’s role is to coordinate the analysis of samples collected from efficacy studies with the mission to strengthen malaria molecular surveillance on the African continent.
Baba is interested in malaria drug resistance specifically on phenotypic assays: routine drug susceptibility tests and survival assays. The phenotypic approach will help monitor the susceptibility of current antimalarial in use in Senegal and explore the effect of new mutations on parasite susceptibility to drugs.
Madeline is a graduate student co-mentored by Dyann Wirth and Jeffrey Dvorin. Her work focuses on the discovery of compounds targeting the unique cellular division machinery of Plasmodium falciparum. Through localization studies, Madeline is also characterizing the function of PfCoronin, a protein implicated in reduced artemisinin susceptibility.
Amy has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and is involved in genomic research and infectious disease. Her current focus is using molecular tools for malaria drug resistance surveillance in Senegal.
Paul is lab manager with the Wirth lab, and works in chemical biology, testing novel drugs for antimalarial activity and drug resistance in P. falciparum.
Anna Hu is a graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in Biochemistry and minored in English. She is a research assistant and providing support on multiple projects, including the AcAS project.
Amanda Leads the Chemical Biology Project in the Wirth Laboratory. She leverages chemical biology, in vitro evolution, and whole genome sequencing to discover and interrogate chemically validated targets that can be used to guide drug design, identify drug targets in the malaria parasite, and to understand mechanisms of drug resistance.
Malhar (he/him) is a grad student co-mentored between the labs of Professors Dyann Wirth and Flaminia Catteruccia. He is interested in the transmission biology of drug resistant malaria parasite P. falciparum through the mosquito and liver stages of its life-cycle, as well as studying the fundamental biology of the sporozoite and early liver-stages of the parasite. Malhar enjoys sketching, cooking, and looking at birds and mushrooms.
Morgan is a graduate student in the Wirth lab, currently pursuing her PhD in the Biological Sciences in Public Health (BPH) program. She is interested in 1) understanding the risk of Pfkelch13 and Pfcoronin variants conferring artemisinin (ART) resistance in a Senegalese genetic background and 2) further elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying observed ART resistance.
Professor Ndiaye manages field site activities in Senegal for a number of collaborating institutions, including Harvard University, Tulane University, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He serves as director of the International Research and Training Center on Infectious Pathogens and Genomics, and Senegal-Director of the Senegal Harvard Malaria Initiative.
Tolla Ndiaye is a PhD and postdoc researcher at the Fidock Lab, Columbia University working on Plasmodium falciparum drug resistance.
Dr. Yaye Dié Ndiaye is an accomplished molecular biologist and currently leading the molecular Biology unit at the International Center for Research on Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS) at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (UCAD). Her renowned expertise encompasses a diverse array of scientific disciplines, including molecular biology, genomics, and ex vivo studies. Dr. Ndiaye’s research topic focuses on exploring the phenotypic consequences of existing and novel Pfkelch13…
Mr Ndiop is the lead economic planner at National Malaria Control Program, tasked with activities planning, surveillance, epidemiologic analysis, monitoring and evaluation of malaria. Starting in 2017, he has been the Co-Chair of Roll Back Malaria, an organization focusing on the monitoring and surveillance of malaria.
Bassirou is a scientist interested in the use of bioinformatics and data science tools to solve public health problems. His research focuses mainly on the study and understanding of mutations in plasmodium. He is also investigating the use of machine learning tools to solve scientific problems related to malaria such as the identification of positive selection in malaria parasites.
Professor Abdisalan Noor is a malaria epidemiologist and global health leader specializing in data and analytics for effective public health programs. Before joining Harvard, Noor was the Head of Unit of Strategic Information for Response at the World Health Organization Global Malaria Programme (GMP) in Geneva, Switzerland. Here, he led the publication of the WHO World Malaria Report and worked on the development of normative guidance and tools on malaria…
Connor Payne is working on (i) Assay & small molecule inhibitor development for aminoacyl tRNA synthetase enzymes, and (ii) development and translation of CoraFluor TR-FRET assay platforms to the characterization of P. falciparum biology.
Alli is interested in identifying and characterizing Plasmodium targets during mosquito stage development that are particularly vulnerable to transmission blocking strategies.
Aida is interested in investigating the burden of non falciparum species in the context of malaria elimination in Senegal and the pathogens responsible of non-malarial fevers in Senegal.
Aita is interested in pairing microbial sequencing with clinical data to better understand the effect of pathogenic bacteria on human disease. In the lab (CIGASS), the utility of microbial genomics tools in health surveillance is demonstrated using sequencing techniques for the detection and characterization of clinical infections. These techniques enable CIGASS to see the impact of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis for bacterial identification on clinical microbiology and infectious diseases…
Kairon (he/they) is a Research and Project Coordinator for the Wirth Lab. He supports data generation, wet lab coordination, and administrative management of the Malaria Genomic Surveillance and Benchmarking Project as well as other projects in the Wirth Lab.
PharmD, Dr. Djiby, has gained experience in conducting field activities related to malaria, including patient recruitment, on-site sample handling, and the monitoring of specific cases. He is well-versed in a range of molecular biology and genomic techniques. Presently, Djiby is actively involved in the molecular monitoring of Pfhrp2/3 gene deletions and the surveillance of drug resistance in malaria.
Rob is a Research Associate with more than 12 years of research experience in malaria. His core research interests focus on understanding the biology underlying novel antimalarial drug targets and mechanisms of drug resistance using a range of cell physiology, biochemistry and molecular genetics techniques. His current research focuses on the Plasmodium falciparum acetyl CoA synthetase (PfAcAS), a novel drug target implicated in protein acetylation and the epigenetic regulation of…
Mouhamad Sy is a PhD student at the Laboratory of Parasitology at Hôpital Aristide le Dantec, Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Sénégal. His research concerns Plasmodium falciparum diversity and drug resistance using specially target amplicon deep sequencing and metadata analysis. He has experience on malaria field research and on pathogen discovery using metagenomic sequencing.
Abdoulaye is a Ph.D. candidate and is passionate about research. He works on the resistance of antimalarials. He also worked on several projects at the the Parasitology and Mycology laboratory of the Aristide Ledantec hospital at Cigass which allowed him to learn and use molecular biology techniques, namely: DNA extraction on any medium, high-resolution melting (HRM) and barcoding. Abdoulaye also received training in genomics in Nigeria on PCR-QPCR and RT-PCR…
The current gold standard malaria treatments are artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), but unfortunately, artemisinins are threatened by growing resistance. Imran employs cutting-edge cell and molecular biology techniques to understand the underlying mechanisms of Pfcoronin– and Pfkelch13-mediated artemisinin resistance. In collaboration with several other lab members and partners, Imran is also involved in assessing the potential impacts of specific Pfkelch13 and Pfcoronin polymorphisms in malaria parasites from Senegal, where ACTs are…
Sarah Volkman is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with research interests in malaria biology, drug resistance, and population genetics. She leads efforts in collaboration with Professor Daouda Ndiaye at the University Cheikh Anta Diop and the International Center for Research and Training in Applied Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS) in Senegal to apply population genetic strategies to identify genetic loci that contribute…
Wes is a research scientist in the Wirth lab whose research focuses on the intersection of parasite population genetics and epidemiology. He uses a variety of computational and analytical techniques to determine how genetics can be used to infer different aspects of malaria transmission and guide data-informed recommendations for malaria control efforts.