NIH R01 · 2025
Giardia lamblia is a widespread zoonotic intestinal parasite that causes acute and chronic diarrheal disease, affecting over 280 million people annually. Hosts ingest cysts, which excyst into trophozoites that extracellularly attach to the small intestine using the ventral disc, a complex and unique microtubule (MT) organelle. Attachment allows Giardia to resist host peristalsis and colonize the epithelium and may also directly damage and shorten the microvilli of epithelial cells, disrupt the intestinal epithelial barrier, or trigger apoptosis and malabsorption. The ventral disc is eight microns in diameter and is composed of upwards of 100 disc-associated proteins (DAPs) that create…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.