Research

The Dou lab studies two important protozoan pathogens: Toxoplasma gondii, relevant in biomedicine, and Histomonas meleagridis, a major concern in the poultry industry.

Toxoplasma gondii infects roughly one-third of the global human population. As an obligate intracellular parasite, it requires host cell invasion, replication, and egress to propagate infection. My lab investigates two critical aspects of Toxoplasma infection: (1) understanding the role of the digestive vacuole, a lysosome-equivalent organelle, in the parasite for infection dissemination, and (2) examining the role of heme metabolism in Toxoplasma‘s intracellular survival and pathogenesis.

Histomonas meleagridis, an amoeboid protozoan, causes severe disease in birds, particularly turkeys, where infections lead to mortality rates as high as 70-100%. Infected turkeys can spread the pathogen rapidly within flocks, yet the infectious agent and precise transmission routes remain unclear. Our research focuses on elucidating the function of cysteine proteases in Histomonas infection and understanding the role of cyst-like forms in the parasite’s transmission within turkey populations.

Through a multidisciplinary approach combining molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and drug discovery, my lab aims to uncover molecular mechanisms underlying parasite growth, survival, and infection pathways. This work will contribute to developing novel therapeutic strategies and antibiotics to combat eukaryotic pathogen infections.