User:Mikegretes

I am a scientist at a university in the American Pacific Northwest studying structural and molecular parasitology. I look for parasite genes that could be vulnerable to antiparasitic drugs and examine the structures of target parasite proteins for ways to make drugs more potent and less toxic to people. My focus is to develop better treatments for Trypanosoma cruzi infection, the cause of Chagas disease, and related trypanosomatid Leishmania species. Along with lab science, I have done advocacy and community building work on affordability of medicines to people living in poverty and development of new health technologies (drugs, diagnostics, vaccines) for neglected infections of poverty.