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Hello! I'm India Robinson and I'm a student at the Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO).
I twice had the opportunity for summer research training at the CDIPD; the first time was a very hard decision for me to make as I would be away from home, however, I knew that if I were to take this on, the experience would expand my academic skills and connect me with other students and mentors. Looking back, I am glad that I made the decision to perform research at the Center, which included supportive and meaningful conversations regarding degree and career pathways. For sure, the internships at the CDIPD have given me new skills and a more informed perspective regarding my future career choices.
Hi! I’m Amy Wang and I am a senior at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego.
I have always had an interest in medicine, anatomy, and healthcare for minorities. Wishing to increase my knowledge about research, I found out about the CDIPD and approached the Center for advice regarding the development of an intervention for schistosomiasis as part of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation’s 2022 competition to advance synthetic biology. This summer, wanting to gain more research experience, I again contacted the CDIPD and had the amazing opportunity to get hands-on training in its research environment that I normally wouldn’t have as a high schooler. I worked with Trypanosoma brucei that causes Human African trypanosomiasis (Sleeping Sickness). I learned about different kinds of methods, including drug assays and statistical analysis, and I gained a lot of valuable knowledge.
I’m grateful to everyone I worked with. My experiences with the CDIPD not only taught me numerous scientific skills and knowledge, but gave me more confidence about chasing my ambitions in scientific research.
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Dr. Daniel LaBarbera, University of Colorado, collaborates with Anjan Debnath, CDIPD, to study natural products against Entamoeba histolytica. Drs. LaBarbera and Debnath are recipients of the grant awarded by the Skaggs Scholars Program funded by the ALSAM Foundation to stimulate collaborative research between Skaggs institutions.
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Dr. Mike Pollastri, Northeastern University - medicinal chemistry for hit to lead and lead optimization targeting neglected tropical diseases
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Dr. Rosa Andrade, Institute of Immunology, UC Irvine, is studying the biology and genetics of Toxoplasma and collaborates with CDIPD personnel on drug screens.
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Dr. Emily Troemel, UC San Diego, uses C. elegans is an experimental model for micorsporidia infection. She is providing key advice and consultation to Dr. Connor Caffrey for his work on the parasitic roundworm, Ancylostoma. Her own work on C. elegans should provide important insights into the cell biology of roundworm parasites that are the free living “cousins" of C. elegans.
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Dr. Elizabeth Winzeler, UC San Diego, co-supports drug screening facility with CDIPD. Her own interests are in drug screens versus the liver stages and gametocytes of malaria. She helps maintain a large insectiary at UCSD from which sporozoites can be harvested from mosquitoes.
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Dr. Momar Ndao, McGill University, is an expert on both in vitro screens and animal models of Cryptosporidium. He previously collaborated with CDIPD personnel identifying the major cysteine protease of Cryptosporidium as a valid target for chemotherapy.
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Dr. Matt Cooper, The University of Queensland, Australia. CDIPD has been collaborating with the Cooper laboratory since early 2014 to develop new leads for amebiasis and giardiasis. Cooper group has developed an efficient synthetic approach for a specific compound class and CDIPD is testing those compounds for antiparasitic activity. Dr. Anjan Debnath of CDIPD hosted Angie Jarrad, a PhD student in the Cooper Group for her short-term research at CDIPD.
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Dr. William Roush, Scripps Florida. CDIPD has been collaborating for years with the Roush laboratory, screening medicinal chemistry series targeting the proteases of T. brucei and T. cruzi in vitro and in vivo. More recently, this collaboration has been extended to include optimization of novel compounds targeting the ergosterol biosynthetic pathway, specifically CYP51, sterol 14-demethylase.
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Dr. Sara Lustigman, New York Blood Center. CDIPD collaborates with the Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology, headed by Sara Lustiman, Ph.D, in filarid parasites, specifically those that cause onchocerciasis, also known as "river blindness", and lymphatic filariasis, also known as elephantiasis. The joint effort is focused, along with Anacor and Rahul Singh, in discovering new therapeutics to treat these diseases.