Profiles in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Global Health

ASTMH website editor Jonathan Mayer, PhD, provides unique insights into the work and lives of recent award winners.

Carolina Barillas-Mury, MD, PhD
At the ASTMH's 59th Annual Meeting in November 2010 in Atlanta, Carolina Barillas-Mury, MD, PhD, was presented the 2010 Bailey Ashford Award for distinguished work in tropical medicine. Barillas-Mury is a Senior Investigator and Chief of the Mosquito Immunity and Vector Competence Section, NIAID, National Institutes of Health.

How has membership in the ASTMH made a difference in your career?
I started participating in the annual meetings when I was a post-doctoral fellow working at the European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. One of the major contributions of ASTMH is to provide a broad perspective into the field of infectious diseases and to bring together scientists from all over the world working on basic biology, medicine—or doing field work in endemic areas.

These interactions are very important for those of us investigating mosquito biology and malaria transmission, as it provides a great opportunity to learn about other fields of study such as human immunology, tropical medicine, parasitology and pharmacology. The work in our Unit is focused on the basic biology of the interactions between Plasmodium parasites and the mosquito vectors, but we need to interact with colleagues from other fields to be aware of how our findings could translate into novel strategies to prevent malaria transmission to humans.

How did you originally get into your field?
I obtained my Medical Doctor degree in Guatemala and came to the University of Arizona, in Tucson, to obtain my PhD (there are no graduate programs in Guatemala). At that time, the Center for Insect Science was created and had just received a big grant from NSF. The Center brought together great scientists working with many different aspects of insect biology. I was fascinated by the extreme physiological changes that insects can undergo and by their ability to adapt.

We had a great seminar series called “Hexapodium” that brought the best people from all over the world to Tucson. I decided to join Mike Wells’ Lab, who worked with Lepidopteran insects, and he gave  the freedom to choose any insect model to work on for my dissertation. I told him I wanted to work on an insect that transmits human disease, as I wanted my work to be relevant to Guatemala and to other developing countries. I also wanted my work to have some connection to human health and medicine.

Tell us how you would explain your research/work to a casual acquaintance at a party?
Our group studies malaria transmission by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have an immune system that also tries to fight the parasites that cause malaria. The parasites infect some mosquitoes very well, but not others. We are trying to understand what are the factors in the mosquito that determine how efficiently it is infected. Our ultimate goal is to prevent mosquito infection and stop disease transmission to humans.

How have tropical medicine and research changed over the course of your career?
When I started my career many elegant studies had been done to study mosquito physiology, but our generation was the first one to adapt molecular and cell biology techniques to begin to understand the biology of mosquitoes at a molecular level. The information in the field is growing exponentially since the completion of the genome sequence of several mosquito and Plasmodium parasite species. The establishment of mosquito gene silencing technology using double-stranded RNA has also opened the possibility of exploring gene function much more directly. The picture is becoming much more clear as we gain higher “resolution” in the breath and detail of information we can now obtain.

What are the three most important accomplishments of your career?
First is the use of modern techniques to study the cell biology of Plasmodium midgut invasion, based on which we proposed the time bomb model of ookinete midgut invasion.

Second, our lab has contributed to the study of mosquito immunity as an integrated system in which the gut microbiota, Plasmodium parasites, midgut epithelial cells and circulating hemocytes (equivalents of vertebrate leukocytes) interact and are major determinant of the ability of mosquitoes to transmit malaria. For example, we found that when ookinetes breach the normal barriers that keep bacteria from the microbiota in the gut lumen, this triggers hemocyte differentiation. This response increases the number of circulating phagocytes and makes mosquitoes more capable of fighting Plasmodium infections. It triggers a form of innate immune memory.

And third, I also consider training young scientists, many from developing countries, to use state of the art technology to study diseases of great medical importance one of my major career accomplishments.

Do you have a favorite country for your work? Where?
I only work in the United States, but I love to visit Brazil. They have great scientific meetings and the students are very active, curious and interactive. They have great groups working with insects and people are open an ready

What are your favorite activities outside of work?
I like to draw and paint, to get together with friends and listen to good music.

What is your favorite parasite? Vector? Book?
My favorite vector is definitely the mosquito and Plasmodium is my favorite parasite. My favorite work-related book is The Biology of Disease Vectors, while my favorite non-work-related books include three books I love and have read several times, Obabakoak, by Basque writer Bernando Atxaga; La Borra del Café, by Uruguayan novelist Mario Benedetti; and Maridos, by Mexican writer Angeles Mastretta.

What are you reading for pleasure?
I am reading Zarite, a novel from Isabelle Allende that takes place in what is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. She allows you to understand the subhuman conditions of slaves in the sugar plantations in the island and the brutality of the independence revolution through the eyes of Zarite, a slave.

Reading this book helped me understand why Haiti still has so many problems today. It is clear that such a terrible past is something that these countries need overcome before they can move forward. I guess it is the same as in families. Some mistakes affect several generations. One would hope that justice, fairness and compassion also propagate and pass from one generation to the next.

What is the last good film that you saw?
I really liked Oveja Negra (Black Sheep), an independent foreign film from Mexico directed by Humberto Hinojosa.

Are you optimistic about the future of tropical medicine? Why?
Yes, these are exciting times. We have many great questions that need to be addressed and much better tools to approach them. We are also reaching the era globalization, when information can reach everyone and I believe we will see an explosion of creativity coming from developing countries. There is a great potential that has been dormant and now “waking up.”