Funding ERC Starting Grant for Research on Cell Biology of Malaria Pathogen
5 September 2024
Dr Franziska Hentzschel receives valuable funding from European Research Council
Her research on the cell biology of the malaria pathogen has earned Dr Franziska Hentzschel an ERC Starting Grant. This high-level funding by the European Research Council (ERC) will finance her studies on a protein complex that can only be found in the parasite and regulates an important part of the reproduction of this parasite in the mosquito host. Dr Hentzschel is a scientist at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg of Heidelberg University and leads a working group in the Parasitology Unit, which is located at the Center for Infectious Diseases of Heidelberg University Hospital. The ERC will provide funding amounting to approximately 1.5 million euros over a period of five years.
Malaria is caused by a single-cell parasite called Plasmodium. It is transmitted to humans by the Anopheles mosquito as it sucks blood. The parasite needs both hosts to be able to develop completely. To date, there has, however, been little research on the developmental steps Plasmodia undergo in the mosquito. What is known is that malaria pathogens use different proteins to control fundamental biological processes of their development in the mosquito, for example reproduction. In her research, Dr Hentzschel is investigating the contribution of the male Plasmodium genome to the replication of the parasites.
The scientist recently discovered a special version of the Arp2/3 protein complex, which in this form only occurs in the malaria pathogen. It regulates the way the genetic material is distributed into the developing male gametes of the parasite. In this context, it is of special research interest that Plasmodia without this complex die at a certain stage of their development instead of migrating into the mosquito’s salivary glands. In her ERC project “The Unusual Role of a Highly Divergent Arp2/3 Complex in the Mosquito Stages of Malaria Parasites” (Plasmoarp) Dr Hentzschel is investigating how this protein complex is formed and activated, and in what way it regulates the distribution of the genetic material. She hopes that this research will produce new approaches to interrupting the life cycle of the malaria pathogen in the mosquito.
Franziska Hentzschel studied biochemistry at Technical University of Munich and Molecular Biosciences at Heidelberg University, where she earned her doctorate in 2017 with a thesis on the malaria pathogen Plasmodium. A post-doctoral fellowship then took her to the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology in Glasgow (United Kingdom), where she worked on the single-cell RNA sequencing of host and parasite cells in order to investigate the parasite’s adaptation to different niches in the host. In early 2021 the scientist returned to Heidelberg for her research and in 2023 founded her own research group here. Since then her studies have concentrated on the molecular and cellular biology of the male Plasmodium stages and, in particular, the formation of gametes. Her goal is to decode their contribution to the parasite’s development in the mosquito host.
With the ERC Starting Grant the European Research Council supports outstanding young scientists from all disciplines who have already produced excellent work and wish to conduct pioneering research as project leaders.