 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Friday Evening Lecture Series
06/26/09
Lillie Auditorium, 8:00 PM
"The Human Parasite Trichomonas vaginalis: One Cell, Multiple Revelations"
Patricia J. Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles; former course director, MBL Parasitology course
Introduced by Dr. Mitchell Sogin
Lecture Abstract:
Trichomonas vaginalis has captured the attention of evolutionary biologists as well as physicians based on intriguing properties of interest to both academic and medical communities. As a human-infective parasite T. vaginalis is responsible for the most prevalent, non-viral sexually transmitted infection worldwide. Studies on the pathogenesis of this parasite have uncovered novel properties that permit it to infect and thrive in the human urogenital tract. At the same time, this unicellular eukaryotic organism is one of the most biologically divergent eukaryotes examined to date. T. vaginalis has served as a model organism for the study of eukaryotes that lack mitochondria, the powerhouse organelle that is often defined as a distinguishing feature of eukaryotes and is absent in simpler prokaryotic organisms. An alternative organelle found in trichomonads, called the hydrogenosome, has been at the forefront of studies aimed at determining whether the evolution of the eukaryotic cell coincided with the acquisition of the endosymbiont that gave rise to mitochondria in eukaryotes or was an independent, secondary event. This lecture will focus on evolutionary and medically relevant secrets gleaned from molecular, cellular and genomic investigations aimed at exposing the tricks of Trichomonas.
Patricia J. Johnson is a Professor at the University of California Los Angeles in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics where she has been on the faculty since 1988. She received her Ph.D. in the Biological Sciences in 1984 from the University of Michigan. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the Department of Molecular Biology, Professor Johnson worked at the Rockefeller University as a research scientist. She is currently an Associate Editor for PLOS Pathogens and International Journal of Parasitology and has served as an Editorial Board Member for Eukaryotic Cell, Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology, Drug Resistance Updates, and Experimental Parasitology & Journal of Eukaryotic Microbial. Professor Johnson served as a member of the National Institutes of Health Tropical Medicine & Parasitology Study Section from 1997 to 2002. She has received numerous awards, including the Scholar Award in Molecular Parasitology from the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund in 1998 and an NIH MERIT Award (2004-2014). From 2005 to 2008, Professor Johnson was the course director of the MBL’s Biology of Parasitism course.
Dr. Mitchell Sogin will introduce Professsor Johnson. Dr. Sogin founded the MBL’s Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution in 1996. Over its short history, The Bay Paul Center has become a focal point for collaborative research between molecular biologists, biochemists, parasitologists, ecologists, and other colleagues from the MBL’s summer and resident communities, and from around the world. Dr. Sogin’s research has made many important contributions towards understanding the evolutionary history of protists. His current research employs massively parallel sequencing technology to explore the diversity and relative abundance of different kinds of microorganisms in marine and terrestrial environments as well as the microbiomes of mammalian organisms. Dr. Sogin received his B.S and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Prior to relocating to the MBL in 1989, he was an associate professor at the University of Colorado and was a Miller Professor at the University of California in Berkeley. Dr. Sogin is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology, He has served on the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board and is a member of the American Society of Microbiology, the Society of Protozoologists, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the American Society for Cell Biology. He serves on the editorial boards of Environmental Microbiology and Protist.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
