Thomas Lavstsen

The paper develops a system to study PfEMP1, a key malaria parasite virulence factor, by generating parasites expressing a single PfEMP1 variant and enabling genome edits to investigate its function.

The paper compares var gene expression in asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infections and clinical malaria cases during dry and wet seasons in Mali, finding fewer and lower-level var transcripts in asymptomatic carriers.

The paper identifies two human monoclonal antibodies that broadly inhibit PfEMP1's binding to EPCR, a key process in severe malaria pathogenesis.

This study tests mosaic cVLP vaccines against PfEMP1 CIDR1 domains in mice, finding comparable antibody responses to single-variant cocktails but no broad cross-reactivity.

The paper introduces a new computational pipeline for var gene expression analysis, showing changes in var gene expression and core transcriptome during in vitro culture of Plasmodium falciparum.

The paper identifies PfEMP1 variants associated with severe malaria in first-time infected adults and non-severe cases using RNA-seq and var gene analysis.

Varia predicts var gene sequences and domain compositions from short sequence tags, enabling analysis of var gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum.