School of Life Sciences

I studied for my BA at Cambridge University, where I gained a double first in Natural Sciences and also participated in the Cold Spring Harbor undergraduate research program.  I then completed a PhD in Cell Biology at Cancer Research UK, before moving to the Harvard School of Public Health as a Charles H. Hood postdoctoral fellow, where I began to study the epigenetic control of virulence genes in the malaria parasite.  During my postdoc, I also conducted a field study at the MRC Institute in The Gambia, investigating clinical phenotypes and the expression of virulence genes in patients with malaria. 

Upon returning to the UK, I worked briefly as a sub-editor at Nature, then joined the faculty at Keele in September 2011.  In my first year of appointment, I have won two Research Council grants (MRC and BBSRC), as well as competitive funding for a PhD student.  I have also gained my Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education and have taken on significant teaching responsibilities in parasitology and other areas.  I currently organise the seminar series for Keele University's Centre for Applied Entomology and Parasitology (CAEP); I am on the Council of the British Society for Parasitology and was a co-organiser of the 2013 BSP Spring Meeting.

Please contact me if you are interested in PhD or postdoctoral work in these areas.

My research focuses on the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, with the goal of improving our understanding of the parasite’s basic biology and the impact of this biology on virulence. I use molecular genetics together with biochemical techniques to study this important disease-causing organism, which is now becoming increasingly tractable to molecular biologists.

Areas of particular interest include mechanisms for silencing and promoting the recombination of a family of virulence genes called var genes.  These genes encode the major parasite antigen expressed on infected red blood cells; they are found primarily at sub-telomeric loci and their variant expression is under epigenetic control.  I am also interested in the structure and function of the telomeres adjacent to these virulence genes, and in a group of NAD⁺-dependent deacetylase enzymes called ‘sirtuins’ which regulate subtelomeric chromatin and virulence gene expression.  My previous work linked the Plasmodium falciparum sirtuins to particular patterns of var gene expression and to severe malaria in human patients.

Images

• Top - Plasmodium falciparum parasites inside human red blood cells
• Bottom - Schematic of epigenetic silencing of sub-telomeric var genes

2013   'A quantitative analysis of Plasmodium falciparum transfection using DNA-loaded erythrocytes.'
Hasenkamp, S., Merrick, C.J., Horrocks, P. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology Published online Jan 11^th 2013

2012   ‘Epigenetic dysregulation of virulence gene expression in severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria.’
Merrick, C.J., Huttenhower, C., Buckee, C.O., Amambua-Ngwa, A., Gomez-Escobar, N.,Walther, M., Conway, D.J., Duraisingh M.T.  Journal of Infectious Diseases, 205(10), 1593-1600.

2010    ‘The effect of Plasmodium falciparum Sir2a histone deacetylase on clonal and longitudinal variation in expression of the var family of virulence genes.’
Merrick, C.J., Dzikowski, R., Imamura, H., Chuang, J., Deitsch, K., and Duraisingh, M.T. Int. J.Parasitol. 40, 35-43.

2007    ‘Plasmodium falciparum Sir2: An unusual sirtuin with dual histone deacetylase and ADP-ribosyltransferase activity.’
Merrick, C.J. and Duraisingh, M.T.  Eukaryot Cell, 6(11), 2081-2091.

2005    ‘Functional Analysis of Avr9/Cf-9 Rapidly Elicited Genes Identifies a Protein Kinase, ACIK1, that is Essential for Full Cf-9-Dependent Disease Resistance in Tomato.’
Rowland, O., Ludwig, A.A., Merrick, C.J., Baillieul, F., Tracy, F., Durrant, W.E., Fitz-Laylin, L., Nekrasov, V., Yoshioka, H. and Jones, J.D.G.  Plant Cell 17(1), 295-310.

2004    ‘Visualisation of altered replication dynamics after DNA damage in human cells.’  
Merrick, C.J., Jackson, D. and Diffley, J.F.X.  J.Biol.Chem. 279, 20067-20075.


Review Articles ______________________________________________________________

2010    ‘Plasmodium Epigenetics: What do we really know?’
Merrick, C.J. and Duraisingh, M.T.  Eukaryot Cell, 9(8), 1150-8.

2006    ‘Heterochromatin-mediated control of virulence gene expression.’        
Merrick, C.J. and Duraisingh, M.T.  Mol Microbiol. 62(3), 612-20.

Other Academic writing________________________________________________________

2012    ‘Malaria virulence genes: Complex control.’ Review of Volz et al. Cell Host & Microbe 2012.
Merrick, C.J. British Society for Parasitology online journal club, Feb 2012.

Science Writing for the General Public ____________________________________________

2013    ‘A Scientist for all Seasons’ (A review of E.O Wilson’s ‘Biophilia’)
Merrick, C.J.   Slightly Foxed, in press.

2013    ‘Adventures in achromatopsia’ (A review of Oliver Sacks’s ‘The Island of The Colourblind’)
Merrick, C.J.   Slightly Foxed, Spring 2013 issue.

2011    ‘Honest Jim and the double helix’ (A review of James Watson’s ‘The Double Helix’)
Merrick, C.J.   Slightly Foxed. Autumn 2011 issue.

2011    ‘Biophilia for beginners’ (A review of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’)
Merrick, C.J.   Slightly Foxed. Spring 2011 issue.

2010    ‘Malaria: An old but pressing problem’
Merrick, C.J.  SITN-Flash (Newsletter of the Harvard ‘Science In The News’ Network)
World AIDS Day Special Issue on Infectious Diseases, Dec 1 2010.

2009    ‘Tuberculosis: Fighting the Great White Plague.’
Merrick, C.J.  Biological Sciences Review, 21(3).

• LSC-20002 Symbiotic Interactions between Organisms (module manager 2011-13)
• LSC-30036 Human Parasitology
• LSC-30004/08 3rd year Experimental Research Projects
• LSC-30007 3rd year Dissertations
• LSC-30015 Biology of Disease
• LSC-20055 Life at the Extremes, Field Course

• MSc in Molecular Parasitology and Vector Biology
• MSc in Scientific Research Training (supervision of students in international placement)

News and Events

Life Sciences Faculty bring Cutting Edge Science into the Classroom

Life Sciences faculty nominated for Teaching Excellence Awards

Postgraduate Teaching Certificates for new Life Sciences staff

• WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FACTSHEET ON MALARIA
• MALARIA: AN OLD BUT PRESSING PROBLEM (HARVARD 'SCIENCE IN THE NEWS')
• METHODS IN MALARIA RESEARCH HANDBOOK
• PLASMODIUM GENOME DATABASE, 'PlasmoDB'
  
  
  
  
  

Current lab members:

• Dr Lynne Harris, postdoc, from Jan 2013.
  

• Dr James Edwards-Smallbone, postdoc, from Jun 2013.

• Ashley Jordan, joint Keele/ILL PhD student, Sept 2012-2015.

Previous lab members:

• MSc students 2012-13: Adriana Adolfi, MSc in Molecular Parasitology and Vector Biology, now PhD student at LSTM.  Molly Gorman, MSc in Scientific Research Training at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, now completing medical degree after intercalated year in research.

• Undergraduates 2012-13: Gemma Williams (Wellcome Trust Vacation Scholarship, summer 2013).  Rebecca Jarrom, Joshua Watkins, Kiran Riasat, Claire Flavell, Mengwu Yu.

• Undergraduates 2011-12: Samantha Holmes, Samantha Morrey, Victoria Allin, Emma Crisp.

Please contact me to discuss sources of funding if you are interested in working in Plasmodium molecular genetics.  Prospective PhD students should also follow this link for general information on applying for PhD research at Keele.

- Merrick lab members in Keele Hall

Lab News and Events:

Summer research experience for students

Keele Malaria Biologists at the British Society for Parasitology Annual Meeting

BBSRC grant for malaria research awarded to Dr Catherine Merrick

Stafford MP visits malaria research teams at Keele University

New Electrophoresis Equipment for Life Science Researchers

Medical Research Council grant for malaria research awarded to Dr Catherine Merrick

Members of Keele's Centre for Applied Entomology and Parasitology ('CAEP') quoted in The Sunday Times

Lab funding:

• Apr 2013: Wellcome Trust Biomedical Vacation Scholarship supporting Gemma Williams as a undergraduate summer student (8 weeks £1,440).
  

• Oct 2012: UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) research grant: 3 years, 2013-2016, £357,233.
  

• Jun 2012: UK Medical Research Council (MRC) New Investigator grant: 12 months, 2013-2014, £141,899.
  

• Mar 2012: Keele ISTM capital funding bid, with Dr Mark Skidmore, to purchase Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis apparatus (£11,400).

• Feb 2012: Joint PhD studentship 2012-2015, funded by Keele Acorn (£19,106) and Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble (€57,600), supervised by Dr C.J. Merrick and Prof. V.T. Forsyth.  Supplementary funding awarded by Keele ‘Bridging The Gaps’ programme and ISTM new lecturers fund.