Kafatos:Lawniczak, Mara
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Mara Lawniczak MRC Career Development Fellow
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Research interests and active projects
In collaboration with Dan Neafsey (Broad Institute), Seth Redmond (Imperial College), and Danny Park (Broad Institute), I have developed an Anopheles gambiae SNP chip that interrogates 400,000 positions across the genome of Anopheles gambiae and 1000 positions across the genome of Plasmodium falciparum. Thus far, we have used the chip to investigate population structure in M, S, and Bamako mosquitoes from Mali (see publications). We have also used the chip to investigate the genetic basis of susceptibility to Plasmodium falciparum (my work), Plasmodium berghei (in wild type and LRIM1 knockdown mosquitoes; in collaboration with Leanna Upton), Beauveria bassiana (with Jo Fernando), Onyongyong virus (with Jo Fernando), and Serratia marcescens (with Stavros Stathopolous) infections. All of these projects are actively ongoing and producing exciting results, identifying both genes we already know to be involved in response to infections and genes we did not know about. Thus, GWAS in mosquitoes are opening new avenues of research.
I am also interested in understanding the genetic basis of the speciation process and population structure of Anopheles mosquitoes.
Education
University of California, Davis. Ph.D. in Population Biology. 2000- 2004.
Advisor: Dr. David Begun.
University of Texas, Austin. First year Ph.D. program in Integrative Biology. 1999-2000. Advisors: Dr. James Bull & Dr. David Begun.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Bachelor of Science with High Honors in Biology. 1993-1997. Advisors: Dr. Shawn Meagher & Dr. Philip Myers.
Teaching
Guest lecturer for the Advanced Topics in Cellular and Molecular Immunology course led by George Christophides.
My lectures are on Population genomics and Genome-wide association studies.
Teaching assistant at UCDavis for Population genetics (2003, 2004) and Evolution (2001,2002)
Topics and systems of interest
evolutionary genetics, sexual conflict, sexual selection, host-parasite antagonistic coevolution, genetic conflict, evolvability, population genetics/genomics, drosophila, anopheles, plasmodium, cephalopods & nepenthes.
Previous appointments
University College London. BBSRC funded postdoctoral researcher. 2004- 2006.
Advisor: Dr. Tracey Chapman.
Publications
This link to PubMed lists my publications.
