Hi, my name is Michael Tai, and this summer I am interning at the Renã Rachou Research Institute of the Fiocruz Minas Foundation, an immunopathology laboratory in the city of Belo Horizonte. The laboratory focuses on the study, control, and treatment of an array of tropical diseases from malaria to leishmaniasis. The project I am involved with studies Trypanosoma cruzi, the pathogen that causes Chagas disease, from a bioinformatics perspective. I am currently examining the host cell response to invasion by two clones of the parasite through gene ontology enrichment analysis. By highlighting genes that demonstrate differential expression at various points throughout the life cycle of the pathogen, I hope to gain a better understanding of why one clone is avirulent while the other is so effective at causing the disease.
