September: Mattie and Beatrice attended the Molecular Parasitology Meeting in Woods Hole, MA and both gave talks! We also got to see old friends in the Striepen and Kai Zhang lab.

Beatrice presents her PhD work at MPM

Striepenite reunion at The Kidd

Got to catch up with my undergrad/PhD advisor, Kai Zhang, at MPM

October: The lab has arrived (welcome to Ross, Beatrice, and Jack!), so we went to Brewdog to celebrate! Dr. Lilach Sheiner from the University of Glasgow came to Dundee and gave a great talk about redox and organelle communication in Toxoplasma.

First lab trip to Brewdog!

Lilach Sheiner gave a great seminar talk at Dundee

November: Mattie gave a talk at ToxoUK, and attended the EMBO Lab Leadership course with Dr. Susan Wyllie and Dr. Mahima Swamy.

Dinner at ToxoUK

Susan Wyllie and Mattie attend EMBO Lab Leadership Course

Next month includes our first attempt at making transgenic Cryptosporidium, so stay tuned!!!

This summer Mattie participated in MeBoP, the Middle Eastern Biology of Parasitism course in Bern, Switzerland. Organised by Dr. Lilach Sheiner and Dr. Omar Harb, MeBoP is a high-caliber scientific course that covers various aspects of parasitology from molecular biology and epidemiology to genomics, targeted for students in the Middle East as well as North and Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the greatest goals of the course is to provide an environment where young scientists from conflicted political areas are given the opportunity to focus on their mutual professional interests and goals, and to promote networking and the building of professional collaborations across these areas. The students were outstanding and it was a great honour and a lot of fun to participate!

Mattie was also invited by Dr. Julian Rayner to give a seminar at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this summer! It was inspiring to be at the home of the human genome project and to discuss ideas for future collaborations. Thanks for having me!

Check out this interview on Med Chem Net about the challenges of discovery for Cryptosporidium and the journey of developing new tools to study this parasite:

CLICK HERE

Mattie also contributed a post for the Defeat DD Blog (Defeat Diarrheal Disease, a part of PATH) about the impact of a new meta-data analysis of Cryptosporidium epidemiology:

CLICK HERE

In February the Pawlowic lab participated in our first public engagement activity, “Science Saturdays” at the Mills Observatory! We had parasites up on the big screen and chatted with over 100 visitors about what does it takes to be a parasite and why is Cryptosporidium an important parasite to know about.

Event organised by Ali Floyd (WCAIR Public Engagement Manager), Mills Observatory (http://www.leisureandculturedundee.com/mills-home), University of Dundee GRE, and Rolf Black and enjoyed by all!

(photos by www.facebook.com/PeachSnaps.co.uk)

University of Georgia

Hill-walking outside Dundee

Home of the new Pawlowic Lab

November 2017 we moved from the University of Georgia in the USA to set up the Pawlowic lab in Dundee, Scotland!

Check out the School of Life Science’s welcome post for the new lab:

http://www.lifesci.dundee.ac.uk/news/2017/dec/18/welcome-new-pi-dr-mattie-christine-pawlowic