About the consortia

Human populations in Africa possess extraordinary genetic diversity in the erythrocyte surface proteins known as glycophorins that are exploited as invasion receptors by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The recent discovery of a large structural glycophorin variant that confers resistance to severe malaria in African children, together with the observation that parasite genes involved in erythrocyte invasion are also extremely diverse, suggests that an evolutionary arms race is going on. The network seeks to understand the genetic interactions between host and parasite invasion genes and how they are affected by the environment. With an African led team of scientists, this project is examining human, parasite and vector genomic data from 7 locations distributed across the continent, representing a wide range of ecological and epidemiological settings.

Project Sites: University of Ghana, Addis Ababa University, University of Buea, National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Institut Pasteur de Madagascar and the  University of Science Technical and Technology of Bamako