Latest News for 09/2021
June 2021
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30 Jun 2021Joana Faria, a postdoctoral researcher in David Horn’s Lab (BCDD-WCAIR) has been awarded a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society. Joana was awarded over £1 million and will use this award to set up her laboratory at the York Biomedical Research Institute, University of York. Joana will study how a cell controls the expression of one gene out of a large gene family that code for variations of the same functional protein).
January 2021
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11 Jan 2021A team at the University of Dundee has identified how random genetic decisions allow parasites to survive in their human and animal hosts.
November 2019
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21 Nov 2019Professor David Horn has received a prestigious award in recognition of his contribution to global efforts to overcome the disease known as African sleeping sickness. Professor Horn was presented with the William Trager Award at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) in National Harbor, near Washington DC.
September 2019
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06 Sep 2019School of Life Sciences researcher Professor David Horn will receive a £2.1 million Investigator Award from Wellcome to decode gene expression mechanisms in trypanosomes, pathogenic protozoa that cause a range of human and animal diseases.
July 2019
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09 Jul 2019A team of scientists at the School of Life Sciences have identified a protein that makes random decisions to allow parasites to survive in their human hosts. They have been able to identify a complex that allows genes to switch on and off randomly, changing cell surface characteristics and allowing escape from the defences of the host’s immune system. This behaviour is present in genes within parasites known as trypanosomes, and also in the parasite that causes malaria, which claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
December 2018
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28 Dec 2018Parasitic protozoa called trypanosomes synthesize sugars using an unexpected metabolic pathway called gluconeogenesis, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens. The research led by Professor David Horn's team, in particular lead author Dr Julie Kovarova, in collaboration with Professors Mike Ferguson (Dundee) and Mike Barrett (Glasgow) note that this metabolic flexibility may be essential for adaptation to environmental conditions and survival in mammalian host tissues.
September 2018
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04 Sep 2018Researchers at the University of Dundee have identified a new drug target in parasites that cause major neglected tropical diseases, a discovery that contributes towards a global drive to eliminate these diseases by 2030.
May 2018
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02 May 2018At the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research, we have made an exciting discovery about a group of life-threatening parasites.
February 2017
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15 Feb 2017The Royal Society of Edinburgh has announced today that two academics from the School have been elected Fellows of Scotland’s national academy. The new Fellows are: ·David Horn, Professor of Parasite Molecular Biology ·John Rouse, Professor of Chromosome Biology “I am delighted to see our staff recognised among the range of new Fellows announced by the Royal Society of Edinburgh,” said Professor Sir Pete Downes, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dundee.
May 2016
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27 May 2016A genetic game of `winner takes all’ that sustains the parasitic infections which cause sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle – devastating diseases particularly in rural areas of Africa - has been identified in a research breakthrough led by the University of Dundee. African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, affects both humans and animals and has a destructive impact, particularly in rural areas. The disease in humans is typically lethal without therapy and in cattle is the most economically important livestock disease in Africa.
