Keynote Speaker

Michael White

University of South Florida

"How do they do that? A talk on the remarkable cell cycles of Apicopmlea parasites"

Michael White originally trained as a chemist, conducted post-doctoral work on the gene-regulation of T cells at University of Washington with David Morris. He started his own lab at the University of Montana and stayed there for 20 years presumably for more than the fishing! He has been a Professor at the University of South Florida since 2009 and has published over 80 manuscripts on apicomplexan parasites. His lab focuses on Toxoplasma gondii and uses a vast array of genetic and biochemical approaches to understand how the parasite divides, establishes chronic infection and the many mechanisms of parasite/host cell interactions. Recent work demonstrating a role for several cell cycle regulated events including AP2 transcription factors in the control of tachyzoite to bradyzoite differentiation, the role of centrosomes in controlling the growth of Toxoplasma and the description of the spliceosome as an evolutionarily conserved process in Apicomplexa.

Selected Publications

1. Radke JB, Lucas O, De Silva EK, Ma Y, Sullivan WJ Jr, Weiss LM, Llinas M, White MW. ApiAP2 transcription factor restricts development of the Toxoplasma tissue cyst. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Apr 23;110(17):6871-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1300059110. Epub 2013 Apr 9.
2. Gubbels MJ, Lehmann M, Muthalagi M, Jerome ME, Brooks CF, Szatanek T, Flynn J, Parrot B, Radke J, Striepen B, White MW. Forward genetic analysis of the apicomplexan cell division cycle in Toxoplasma gondii. PLoS Pathog. 2008 Feb 8;4(2):e36. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.0040036.
3. Suvorova ES, Francia M, Striepen B, White MW. A novel bipartite centrosome coordinates the apicomplexan cell cycle. PLoS Biol. 2015 Mar 3;13(3):e1002093. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002093. eCollection 2015 Mar.
4. Suvorova ES, Croken M, Kratzer S, Ting LM, Conde de Felipe M, Balu B, Markillie ML, Weiss LM, Kim K, White MW. Discovery of a splicing regulator required for cell cycle progression. PLoS Genet. 2013;9(2):e1003305. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003305. Epub 2013 Feb 21.