Seminar: Prof. Ron Dzikowski from Hebrew University

Prof. Ron Dzikowski's current research is on Plasmodium falciparum, which is the deadliest form of human malaria. He studies the mechanisms of virulence gene expression. His lab is interested in  characterizing cis and trans acting elements involved in the epigenetic regulation of var genes. Particularly, the identification of the protein/s that specifically binds the insulator-like DNA elements required for var silencing and mutually exclusive expression. In addition his lab found that intronic antisense ncRNAs are associated with var gene activation and we investigate their possible role in regulation of these genes. He also studies the unknown function and regulation of the unusual type3 vars. To ease the use of reverse genetic approaches in P. falciparum they develop new tools to manipulate gene expression in Plasmodium that could be also used as a novel approach for drug design.