Every year, malaria evades the immune defenses of nearly 250 million people. But Samarchith “Sam” Kurup is determined to outsmart the parasite before it strikes. Now, with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s prestigious Investigators in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) award in hand, his lab is one step closer.
Burroughs Wellcome recently announced its 2025 cohort of eight innovative scientists. Kurup is the first University of Georgia faculty member to receive this highly competitive award.
Growing up in India, Kurup saw malaria’s toll firsthand. That drove him to study parasites—first as a veterinarian, and then as a Ph.D. student. After completing training in veterinary medicine, he pursued his Ph.D. at UGA, studying another parasite that infects both humans and animals, Trypanosoma cruzi. He also began pairing his parasitology knowledge with immunology.
After graduating, Kurup returned as a postdoc to the study of Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. In 2019, Kurup joined the faculty in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases where he has established a robust research program.
“My lab is trying to understand how we, as hosts, fight malaria parasites in the liver,” said Kurup. “We know the liver cells have their own ‘home defense system’ and don’t have to call in other immune cells to handle the parasites. But somehow a few parasites are able to circumvent this defense system.”
In 2022, Kurup was awarded a five-year National of Institutes of Health grant to study how our liver cells target Plasmodium. Human malaria infection begins in what is called the liver stage of the parasite’s life cycle. After an infected mosquito bites a person, the parasite then travels to the liver where it replicates. While a person is not symptomatic at this point, the human immune system is already deploying its defenses. Kurup’s lab wants to understand why the human immune system is unable to fully clear the infection at this point.
“About 10% of the parasites are able to evade our immune responses within the hepatocytes,” said Kurup. “If we can figure out the parasite’s strategy, how they get through our defenses, then we have a chance of shutting them down completely.”
The Kurup lab has identified special proteins (which they call “exported effectors”) that the parasite releases. They believe these proteins help the parasite to slip past the human immune system. However, little is known about how they work.
“We want to find out what the parasite is targeting in the host cell,” said Kurup. “This would open up whole new doors in therapeutic research.”
Plasmodium falciparum is often resistant to current drug treatments. As the most widespread and lethal strain of malaria, it is critical to find new ways to treat the infection. Kurup believes that by targeting the malaria parasite in the liver, the disease can be stopped in its tracks.
The PATH award funds early career scientists to pursue cutting-edge research that may be considered too risky for traditional funding opportunities. The award to Kurup also comes with $505,000 in flexible research support over the next five years to identify the “exported effector” proteins, study their behavior, and explore how they interact with the host’s liver cells.
“In addition to being a recognition of the important work that we do as a team, this award is an endorsement to chasing bold ideas and having lofty goals,” Kurup said. “If we crack the parasite’s playbook, we could turn the tide against malaria.”
