Insights into malaria parasite and vector evolution from longitudinal population genomic studies

Daniel NEAFSEY
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health.

neafsey@hsph.harvard.edu

Daniel Neafsey is an assistant professor in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Chan School of Public Health and the Associate Director of the Genomic Center for Infectious Disease at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA (USA). His interests include the application of large scale genomic datasets and an evolutionary perspective to understand interactions among malaria parasites, their human hosts, and their anopheline mosquito vectors. In this seminar Daniel will present two stories about how longitudinal collections of malaria parasites and mosquitoes sampled over time can reveal unexpected insights. The first story will focus on how malaria parasites in South America are adapting in non-classical ways to antimalarial drug pressure in a gold mining context, and perhaps modulating their transmission strategy in response to drugs rather than evolving direct resistance. The second story describes a longitudinal analysis of mosquito populations in Burkina Faso to explore the genomic basis of increased prevalence of insecticide resistance over time, which unexpectedly has identified a cryptic, unknown mosquito species in samples collected in 2011.

Recent publications:

Early AM, Lievens M, MacInnis BL, Ockenhouse CF, Volkman SK, Adjei S, Agbenyega T, Ansong D, Gondi S, Greenwood B, Hamel M, Odero C, Otieno K, Otieno W, Owusu-Agyei S, Asante KP, Sorgho H, Tina L, Tinto H, Valea I, Wirth DF, Neafsey DE. Host-mediated selection impacts the diversity of Plasmodium falciparum antigens within infections. Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 11;9(1):1381. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03807-7.

Taylor AR, Schaffner SF, Cerqueira GC, Nkhoma SC, Anderson TJC, Sriprawat K, Pyae Phyo A, Nosten F, Neafsey DE, Buckee CO. Quantifying connectivity between local Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite populations using identity by descent. PLoS Genet. 2017 Oct 27;13(10):e1007065. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007065.

Cerqueira GC, Cheeseman IH, Schaffner SF, Nair S, McDew-White M, Phyo AP, Ashley EA, Melnikov A, Rogov P, Birren BW, Nosten F, Anderson TJC, Neafsey DE. Longitudinal genomic surveillance of Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites reveals complex genomic architecture of emerging artemisinin resistance. Genome Biol. 2017 Apr 28;18(1):78. doi: 10.1186/s13059-017-1204-4.