Biology

Prof. Kasturi Haldar
University of Notre Dame

Research Interests:
Our goal is to convert research findings into therapeutics in rare, inherited disorders as well as neglected infectious diseases. These diseases have generally been ignored by the pharmaceutical industry because the financial rewards for developing new drugs and vaccines to treat them are so insignificant.
In rare diseases we focus on neurological disorders such as Niemann Pick Type C (NP-C) and other disorders that result in neurodegenerative disease. We study inflammatory lipid mobilization in diseased cells and develop biomarkers and new therapies in preclinical murine models with the goal of moving treatments to phase I human clinical studies. The laboratory has had a long standing interest in malaria. A major emphasis is the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which invades and develops in red blood cells to cause disease pathologies that include severe malarial anemia and cerebral disease. The present focus is the molecular mechanism of resistance to artemisinin and new drugs to replace them, since resistance to these front line antimalarials threatens global malaria control and elimination.

To accelerate the development of therapies we partner with pharmaceutical companies in innovative models of private public partnerships in rare and neglected diseases.