Our Remit:

Plasmodium knowlesi is a malaria parasite of Old World macaques that had entered the human population.  With the development of appropriate tools, it quickly became apparent that P. knowlesi malaria was wide-spread, could cause severe and fatal infections and, like Plasmodium falciparum, could reach very high parasitaemia in those infected.

We use P. knowlesi genetics, genomics, clinical samples, in vitro culture and genetic manipulation to determine how and why some patients develop high parasitaemia and severe disease and others not.

Our focus is to compare and contrast severe P. knowlesi malaria with severe P. falciparum malaria, excite the interest of the research community and funders to develop the necessary tools to translate research findings on severe malaria into human health benefit.