Research Projects

Mitochondrion in malaria parasite is involved in numerous physiological processes including pyrimidine biosynthesis and calcium homeostasis. Due to rapid division of parasite, mitochondrial dynamics in parasite is very crucial in order to provide new mitochondria to daughter cell and also for repair of organelle damage in conditions of stress. However, not much work is been done to understand key pathways and proteins involved in regulation of mitochondrial homeostasis, dynamics and internal regulatory signals. Earlier studies from our group and preliminary data presented here, pointed out certain key pathways involved in mitochondrial homeostasis, which include protein turn-over machinery and mitochondrial kinases. It is of utmost importance to understand the functional significance of key regulators of organelle dynamics, which may provide valuable information regarding cellular homeostasis in parasite and lead to identification of novel drug targets.