RNA-binding protein
LabTV: Curious About Malaria
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to buying school supplies and heading back to the classroom or off to university. So, throughout the month of August, I’ll be sharing LabTV profiles of young people whose learning experiences have set them on the path to becoming biomedical researchers.
One of the great things about college is that you never know where those four years might lead you. Elyse Munoz, who’s the focus of today’s video, offers an excellent case in point. Upon enrolling at Arizona State University, Tempe, she chose political science as her major—only to find the classes “incredibly boring.” Then a friend talked Munoz into taking an anatomy class, and suddenly everything clicked: she discovered biology was her true calling.
Now, Munoz is a candidate for a Ph.D. in genetics at Pennsylvania State University, State College. Working in the lab of molecular parasitologist Scott Lindner, Munoz is contributing to the search for promising vaccine targets for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that kills more than a half-million people, mainly children under the age of 5, around the globe each year.
