- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Her presentation is part of the weekly seminars hosted by the Program in International and Community Nutrition (PICN) seminars, all held Wednesdays from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in the Foster Room (Room 1138) of Meyer Hall.
Luckhart's research includes the molecular cell biology and biochemistry of malaria parasite transmission, the functional characterization of the immunological crosstalk and cell signaling that occurs between the mosquito and the mammalian host during bloodfeeding, and the impact of endemic co-infections on malaria parasite development and transmission.
She just received the 2016 “Award for Excellence in Service to Graduate Students,” presented April 8 by the UC Davis Graduate Student Association for outstanding teaching and mentoring. She earlier received the 2012 Outstanding Mentor Award from the UC Davis Consortium for Women and Research.
Luckhart, who joined the UC Davis faculty in 2004 from Virginia Tech, received her master's degree in entomology from Auburn University, and her doctorate in entomology from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Access the website for upcoming PICN seminars.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The lecture, to take place at 10:45 a.m. in the Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) Hall, is sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Storer Life Sciences Endowment of UC Davis.
At Penn State, Thomas serves as the Huck Scholar in Ecological Entomology and directs the Ecology Institute, in addition to his duties as a professor of entomology in the Department of Entomology and Centre for Infectious Disease Dynamics.
He will be introduced by Professor Shirley Luckhart of the UC Davis Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, coordinator of the event.
Thomas researches many aspects of the ecology and evolution of insect pests and diseases in his drive to understand the consequences of global change and to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of pest and disease management. His work involves predicting and understanding the impact of invasive species, and researching biodiversity and ecosystem health, plus many aspects of biological control.
Last December Thomas and his research team at Penn State, in collaboration with partners in Europe and Africa, received a five-year, $10.2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate a new method for preventing the transmission of malaria.
“The method involves limiting mosquito access to houses by blocking openings and installing ‘eave tubes' that contain a unique type of insecticide-laced mosquito netting developed by Dutch partner In2Care that kills the insects as they attempt to enter,” according to a Penn State news release.
Thomas was quoted as saying: “Nearly half of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria, and according to the most recent World Health Organization report, an estimated 438,000 people died from the disease in 2015. The use of insecticides to control mosquitoes has saved millions of lives, but this tactic is increasingly challenged because mosquitoes quickly evolve resistance to the very limited number of insecticides currently used in public health. The eave tube approach presents a novel strategy to help combat this challenge by simultaneously making houses more mosquito proof and providing a novel way of delivering insecticides, which creates opportunities for using a wider range of insecticidal products."
"The small amount of insecticide used in the tubes means that it is cheap to treat an entire house," said Thomas. "Furthermore, retreatment is easy, as it requires simple replacement of small pieces of netting within the tubes."
Internationally recognized, Thomas is a recipient of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Medal for Research Achievement, is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary professor at the University of Witwsatersand, South Africa. He also received Penn State's Alex and Jessie Black Award for Research Excellence.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Rosenberg's seminar is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. His is the first in a series of winter quarter seminars sponsored by the department.
“Infecting humans can be a successful career move for ambitious animal pathogens, especially for RNA viruses,” Rosenberg says. “The path from vertebrate to human requires some type of contact and for some pathogens that is provided by mosquitoes, ticks or other blood-feeding arthropods. Nearly 40 percent of the 213 viruses causing human disease are transmitted by arthropods (arboviruses) and all these are zoonoses.”
“New viral pathogens are discovered every year but an analysis of the historical trends showed that the rates of discovery depend on how and where we look,” Rosenberg noted. “ Discovery of arboviruses has lagged since 1965 as dedicated surveillance has weakened in the tropics. Sampling of animal populations can uncover a rich variety of viruses but gives little indication of emergent potential. The most sensitive sentinel for emerging human pathogens is humans.”
Since graduating from Johns Hopkins, he's spent his career – much of it in Bangladesh, Thailand and Kenya –working for the National Institutes of Healthy, U.S. Army, USDA and CDC on various aspects of the transmission of vector-borne diseases, mostly malaria, but also Lyme disease, plague, tularemia. His expertise also includes the influence of climate on disease ecology and vector-borne diseases.
“More recently I've concentrated on designing strategies and programs for identifying the causes of undiagnosed infectious disease, especially in Uganda, Indonesia and the U.S.,” he said. “I do the typical late career things, like editing Emerging Infectious Diseases, chairing the WHO working group on dengue and,” he quipped,” sleeping at committee meetings.”
For the remainder of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology speakers from Jan. 14 through June 3 see this page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Doctoral research
Her doctoral research was on the host immune response to Leishmania parasites, which provided her valuable experience in mammalian Immunology, as well as a solid background in parasitology and molecular biology. Specifically, her dissertation project focused on the central memory CD4+ T cells generated in response to Leishmania major infection. During her graduate studies, she also attended the prestigious Biology of Parasitism summer course at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Labs. "The course significantly improved my basic knowledge of Parasitology, but also allowed me to work with a variety of parasites, including Plasmodium."
Postdoctoral Research
After completing her doctorate, Pakpour accepted a post-doctoral position in Shirley Luckhart's laboratory at UC Davis. "The laboratory is broadly interested in understanding how the inflammatory factors present in human blood affect malaria parasite transmission," Pakpour noted. In joining the lab, Pakpour shifted from her previous work on adaptive immune responses in mice to the innate immune response of mosquitoes to malaria parasite infection. "In doing so, I have mastered a new body of literature and a broad range of new techniques, including insect cell culture, in vitro cell signaling assays, and culturing of P. falciparum for mosquito infection studies. Further, I adapted our mammalian cell signaling assays for use in mosquito tissues."
Her research goal is to elucidate the bidirectional effects of malaria on Type 2 diabetes and of Type 2 diabetes on malaria. "By 2030, one in five adults on the African continent will have Type 2 diabetes, resulting in epidemic co-morbidity of these diseases," Pakpour said. "Therefore, a better understanding of the intersection of malaria infection and Type 2 diabetes will be critical for the development of future clinical interventions to reduce the burden of Type 2 diabetes complications as well as malaria transmission."
Pakpour's honors include a McBeth Memorial Entomology Scholarship, Presidential Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She received a traineeship in Cell and Molecular Biology (5-T32-GM-07229-32) from 2002-2004 as well as a traineeship in Parasitology: Modern Approaches (5-T32-AI-007532-09) from 2004-2008. In addition, she was a finalist for the UC Davis Award for Post-doctoral Excellence in 2012 and was named an American Society for Microbiology & Burroughs/Wellcome Fund Science Teaching Fellow, 2013-2014.
Pakpour is a member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).
Her recent publications include:
1. DrexlerAL, PietriJE, Pakpour N, HauckE, WangB, GlennonEKK, GeorgisM, RiehleMA, LuckhartS. (2014) Human IGF1 regulates midgut oxidative stress and epithelial homeostasis to balance lifespan and Plasmodium falciparum resistance in Anopheles stephensi. PLoS Pathogens (under review)
2. Pakpour N, Camp L, Smithers HM, Wang B, Tu Z, Adler SA, Luckhart SL. (2013) Protein kinase C-dependent signaling controls the midgut epithelial barrier to malaria parasite infection in anopheline mosquitoes. PLoS One. 8(10): e76535.
3. Vodovotz Y, Azhar N, Miskov-Zivanov N, Buliga M, Zamora R, Ermentrout B, Constantine G, Faeder J, Pakpour N, Luckhart S. Modeling host-vector-pathogen immuno-inflammatory interactions in malaria., in: G. An and Y. Vodovotz (Ed.), Complex Systems and Computational Biology Approaches to Acute Inflammation. Springer Science & Business Media, New York, NY. 2013. 265-279.
4. Chau JY, Lawrence JA, Tiffany CM, Mooney JP, Lokken KL, Pakpour N, Tsolis RM, Luckhart S. (2013) Malaria-associated L-Arginine deficiency induces mucosal mast cell-dependent disruption to the intestinal barrier defenses against non-typhoidal Salmonella bacteremia. Infect Immun. 81(10):3515-26.
5. Hauck E, Antonova-Koch Y, Drexler A, Pietri J, Pakpour N, Liu D, Blacutt J, Riehle MA, Luckhart S. (2013) Overexpression of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) improves fitness and decreases Plasmodium falciparum development in Anopheles stephensi. Microbes Infect. 15(12):775–787.
6. Pakpour N, Akman-Anderson L, Luckhart SL. (2013) The effects of ingested human blood factors on arthropod immunity and physiology. Microbes Infect 15: 243-254.
7. Luckhart SL, Giulivi C, Drexler AL, Antonova-Koch Y, Sakaguchi D, Napoli E, Wong S, Price MS, Eigenheer R, Phinney BS, Pakpour N, Pietri JE, Cheung K, Georgis M, and Riehle M. (2013) Sustained Activation of Akt elicits mitochondrial dysfunction to block Plasmodium falciparum infection in the mosquito host. PLoS Pathog 9(2): e1003180.
8. Pakpour N, Corby-Harris V, Green G, Smithers H, Cheung KW, Riehle MA, Luckhart SL. (2012) Ingested human insulin inhibits the mosquito innate immune response to Plasmodium falciparum. Infect Immun. 80(6):2141-9
9. Surachetpong W*, Pakpour N*, Cheung KW, and Luckhart SL. (2011) Reactive oxygen species-dependent cell signaling regulates the mosquito immune response to Plasmodium falciparum. Antioxidant & Redox signaling. (6):943-55. (*these authors contributed equally to this manuscript)
10. Pakpour N, Cheung KW, Souvannaseng L, Concordet JP and Luckhart SL. (2010) Transfection and mutagenesis of target genes in mosquito cells by locked nucleic-acid modified oligonucleotides. J Vis Exp. (46): e2355.
11. Corby-Harris V, Drexler A, Watkins de Jong L, Antonova Y, Pakpour N, Ziegler R, Ramberg F, Lewis EE, Brown JM, Luckhart SL, and Riehle, MA. (2010) A novel strategy for controlling malaria transmission in the mosquito Anopheles stephensi. PLoS Pathogens. 6(7):e1001003.
12. Liu D, Kebaier C, Pakpour N, Beverley SM, Scott P, Uzonna JE. (2009) Leishmania major phosphoglycans influence the host early immune response by modulating dendritic cell functions. Infect Immun. 77(8):3272-83.
13. Pakpour N, Zaph C, Scott P. (2008) CD4+ T cells in Leishmania major are non-polarized and require IL-12 to become Th1 effector cells. J Immunol. 180:8299-8305.
14. Margolis TP, Elfman FL, Leib D, Pakpour N, Apakupakul K, Imai Y, Voytek C. (2007) Spontaneous reactivation of HSV-1 in latently infected murine sensory ganglia. J Virol. 81(20):11069-74.
15. Miller K, Pakpour N, Yi E, Melese M, Alemayehu W, Bird M, Schmidt G, Cevallos V, Olinger L, Chidambaram J, Gaynor B, Whitcher J, Lietman T. (2004) Pesky trachoma suspect finally caught. Br J Ophthalmol. 88 (6):750-1.
16. Massey HC Jr, Nishi M, Chaudhary K, Pakpour N, Lok JB. (2003) Structure and developmental expression of Strongyloides stercoralis fktf-1, a proposed ortholog of daf-16 in Caenorhabditis elegans. Int J Parasitol. 33(13):1537-44.
17. Luo EJ, Pakpour N, Huang EJ. (2001) Control of mouse sensory neuron development by Brn-3a and homeodomain interacting protein kinase 2. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol.60(5):513-513.
Assistant professor Brian Johnson coordinated the winter quarter seminars. He may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu for more information.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The T32 Retreat, for Training in Vector Biology, will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 1105 of the Veterinary Medicine Research Facility 3B, located at 1089 Veterinary Medicine Drive.
Peter Billingsley of Sanaria, Inc., a biotechnology company dedicated to the production of a vaccine protective against malaria caused by the pathogen Plasmodium falciparum, will be the keynote speaker, addressing the crowd from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m.
Also scheduled to give a keynote presentation was B. Joseph Hinnebusch of the National Institute of Health’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but due to the government shutdown, his presentation is cancelled. Filling in for him from 1 to 2 p.m. will be professor Greg Lanzaro of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, director of the T32 training grant, and associate director Shirley Luckhart, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine.
This year's event is sponsored by the School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Medicine, and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Training Grant in Vector Biology at UC Davis, directed by two UC Davis malaria researchers.
There is no cost for the retreat, but reservations must be made by Oct. 5 with researcher Yoosook Lee at yoosook.lee@gmail.com.
The schedule, as of Friday, Oct. 4:
8:30 to 9:30 a.m.: Coffee
9 to 9:10 a.m.: Welcome by Greg Lanzaro, director of T32 Grant
Vector Biology Research at UC Davis
9:10 to 9:25: Research at the School of Medicine, speaker Shirley Luckhart, associate director of T32 grant
9:25 to 9:40 a.m.: Research at the Center for Vectorborne Diseases (CVEC), speaker CVEC director and research entomologist William Reisen
9:40 to 9:55 a.m.: Research at the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, speaker entomologist Anthony Cornel
9:55 to 10:10 a.m.: Research at the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, speaker entomologist Gregory Lanzaro
10:10 to 10:20: Remarks by Dori Borjesson, chair of UC Davis Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine
10:20 to 10:45: Coffee break
Keynote Presentation 1
10:45 to 11:45: Peter Billingsley of Sanaria, Inc.
Lunch
Keynote Presentation 2
1 to 2 p.m.: Professor Greg Lanzaro of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, director of the T32 training grant, and associate director Shirley Luckhart, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine. (Due to the government shutdown, the initially scheduled presentation by B. Joseph Hinnebusch of the National Institute of Health’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is cancelled.)
Trainee Presentations
2 to 2:15 p.m.: Laura Norris (studies with Anthony Cornel): "Speciation Island Introgression between Anopheles gambiae forms driven by Insecticide Pressure."
2:15 to 2:30: Bradley Main (studies with Greg Lanzaro): "Ecological Genomics Among Anopheles gambiae Populations in Mali"
2:30 to 2:45 p.m.: Rebecca Ann Elsner (studies with Nicole Baumgarth): "Suppression of B Cell Responses to the Lyme disease agent Borrella burgdoreci"
3:10 to 3:25 p.m. Lattha Souvannaseng (studies with Shirley Luckhart): "Ubiquity of Population-Specific Mutations in the Immune Signaling Genes Among Chromosomal Forms of Anopheles gambiae"
3:25 to 3:40: Elizabeth Glennon (studies with Shirley Luckhart): "The Role of Abscisic Acid in the Mosquito Immune Response to Plasmodium falciparum"
3:40: Closing Remarks, Greg Lanzaro
For more information on the training grant or research, contact Lanzaro at gclanzaro@ucdavis.edu or Luckhart at sluckhart@ucdavis.edu.