We released another preprint!

Summary

The Plasmodium falciparum sodium efflux pump PfATP4 is a leading antimalarial target, but suffers from a lack of high-resolution structural information needed to identify functionally important features in conserved regions and guide rational design of next generation inhibitors. Here, we determine a 3.7Å cryoEM structure of PfATP4 purified from CRISPR-engineered P. falciparum parasites, revealing a previously unknown, apicomplexan-specific binding partner, PfABP, which forms a conserved, likely modulatory interaction with PfATP4. The discovery of PfABP presents a new avenue for designing novel PfATP4 inhibitors.

We’re incredibly proud of this team effort done in collaboration with Akhil Vaidya and Anurag Shukla in the Vaidya Lab at Drexel.

Check it out!

We’re thrilled to welcome James Zhen to the Ho Lab! James earned his PhD with Dr Hong Zhou at UCLA. He brings with him strong expertise in both single-particle cryoEM and in situ cryoET studies of viral pathogens to our multidisciplinary team, and we are excited to introduce him to the cool biology of malaria parasites. Welcome, James, we’re looking forward to lots of cool science and fun times with you!

We’re excited to be hosting Anna-Lena Roßmann from the Spielmann Lab for a 3-month internship with us this Fall in the Ho Lab! Anna is a 3rd year PhD student in the lab of Dr. Tobias Spielmann at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany, and will be learning more about in situ CryoET and hopefully getting some nice parasite tomograms during her time with us this Fall. Welcome Anna, we’re looking forward to lots of cool science and fun times with you!

We’re thrilled to welcome Becca Lees to our team! Becca earned her PhD with Dr.s Helen Saibil and Michael Blackman at the Birkbeck University of London and the Francis Crick Institute and brings exciting expertise in both single-particle cryoEM and malaria parasite genetics to our strong multidisciplinary team. Welcome, Becca, we’re looking forward to lots of cool science and fun times with you!

Mimi has been selected as a 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar! This funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts will support research in our lab aimed at understanding how malaria parasites take up and break down hemoglobin from host red blood cells to acquire the amino acids they need to survive.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/06/18/37-researchers-working-to-transform-biomedical-science

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/pew-biomedical-scholars/directory-of-pew-scholars/2024/chi-min-ho

Congratulations, Messi Haile, for being selected for the Microbiology & Immunology Training Grant Program!

We’ve been awarded a generous grant from the Mathers Foundation! This funding from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation will support research in our lab aimed at understanding how malaria parasites take up and break down hemoglobin from host red blood cells to acquire the amino acids they need to survive.

We’re excited to re-welcome Hanyu Wang to our team! Hanyu worked as a research assistant in our lab while earning her Masters in Biomedical Engineering here at Columbia BME and is now leveling up to a full-time member of our team as a Technician. Welcome back, Hanyu, we’re looking forward to more cool science and fun times with you!

It’s official! Messi and Jing are the Ho Lab’s first PhD candidates! We went out to celebrate with some well-earned sushi!

Wooohoo! Congrats to Jing for passing her Quals with flying colors!!!

We were all super excited for Messi and Jing’s first visit to Woods Hole for MPM! They both rocked their presentations on the first day and got to spend the rest of the week enjoying the talks and poster, meeting new people, and exploring Woods Hole :)

We released our first preprint as a lab, and it’s a big one!

Summary

Malaria parasites rely heavily on rapid, high fidelity protein synthesis to infect human erythrocytes, making translation an attractive target for new antimalarials. Here, we determined in situ structures of Pf80S ribosomes in thirteen conformational and compositional states from cryoFIB-milled Plasmodium falciparum-infected human erythrocytes across the stages of asexual intraerythrocytic parasite replication.

Our work reveals new insights into translation in the native cellular context that were not possible to achieve with single-particle cryoEM structures, including a bifurcated translation elongation cycle that may represent a general but as-yet-undescribed feature of translation. We resolve a long-standing controversy in the field regarding the mysterious absence of PfRACK1 in published single-particle structures of the Pf80S ribosome, and provide valuable insight into the mode of action and cellular consequences of disrupting malarial translation with a top antimalarial drug candidate.

We’re incredibly proud of this massive team effort.

Check it out!

Wooohoo! Congrats, Messi, for passing her Quals with flying colors!!!

We’re thrilled to welcome our first graduate students Messi Haile and Jing Cheng to the lab! Messi is a student in the Microbiology and Immunology program and Jing is a student in the Cellular and Molecular Physiology & Biophysics Program.

Congrats to our undergrads, Panos, Emerson, Elise, Xiyan, and Elynn, who all won Columbia Summer Funding Awards to support their research in our lab this summer! Emerson, Elise, and Xiyan won awards through Summer@SEAS, and Panos and Elynn through the Columbia College Summer Funding Program.

Our veteran undergrads, Angel, Anjali, and Tina, all got into exciting internship programs for the summer! Tina is doing an internship in Regulatory Affairs at LEXEO Therapeutics here in NYC, Anjali is off to Santa Clara, CA for an internship in Consumable Devices at Roche Sequencing Solutions, and Angel is interning in Fiji!

Congrats! We’re excited for all of you and looking forward to hearing all about it when you get back!

We’re excited to welcome five new Undergraduate Research Assistants to the lab this summer! Emerson, Elise, and Xiyan are incoming sophomores in the School of Engineering, and Panos and Elynn are incoming seniors in Columbia College.

Congrats, Leonie!!! 🥳

The Ho Lab receives a Columbia Precision Medicine Pilot Award to support our exciting new work using cryoFIB-SEM and in situ cryoET to directly visualize malaria parasites captured in the act of invading human red blood cells!

Congrats, Leonie!!! 🥳

We’re thrilled to welcome our new Postdocs David Cobb and Leonie Anton to the lab! With Leonie’s expertise in single-particle cryoEM and David’s deep knowledge of malaria parasite genetics, we’re looking forward to lots of cool science and fun times with this awesome multidisciplinary team!

We just received our first grant! This funding will support research in our lab aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying effector protein export and host-cell remodeling by malaria parasites.

https://commonfund.nih.gov/earlyindependence/AwardRecipients

We’re excited to welcome the first member of the Ho Lab, Carolyn Lee! Carolyn is a pro, and we are lucky to have her on the team!

We are officially open for business and looking for enthusiastic, talented scientists at all levels to join our team!

Mimi presented on the use of cryoEM to solve atomic resolution structures of proteins enriched directly from malaria parasites on Sep 26 at 7:30am and 8pm PST.

Check it out here! https://bitesizebio.com/webinar/understanding-malaria-parasite-pathogenesis-by-cryo-electron-microscopy/