About us

• Map risk factors of helminth burdens and associated disabilities in poor communities so as to better inform current control strategies.
• Identify and characterise host regulators of helminth transmission and morbidity so as to design host-directed therapies.
• Understand the complex interplay between helminths and memory immune responses in the context of vaccination so as to provide strategies that incorporate the potential influence or lack of influence of these parasites during vaccination campaigns.
• Understand the tripartite interaction between helminth infections with their associated tissue pathology, the host factors and the microbiome for a host/microbiome-incorporating design of intervention strategies during helminth infections.
• Identify helminth-derived host modulators that could inform better ways to mitigate untoward responses that drive disease.

Our research may be informative in the development of anti-helminth vaccines, novel anthelminthic drugs, public health policies and in identifying helminth-derived therapeutics that could help alter negative host responses.

Our group makes use of available clinical sites in West Africa (Cameroon) where helminth endemic areas are mapped for prevalence and morbidity.

Human tissue biopsies (blood, serum, plasma, stool samples) and murine models of transgenic mice are used in partnership with collaborators for in-depth mechanistic assays involving various immunological assays (Cytometry, luminex/ELISA), next generation sequencing (DNA, RNA), metabolome, cytokine & microbiome studies.