ONLINE: The biology of parasite sex This week we welcome Professor Boris Striepen (University of Pennsylvania) as our first International Online seminar speaker.

Boris grew up in the harbor neighborhood of Ruhrort, at the confluence of the rivers Ruhr and Rhein, an industrial area of Germany, then dominated by coal and steel. He studied biology at the universities of Bonn and Marburg, and conducted undergrad research on liver flukes in Bonn, and trypanosomes in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Boris earned a PhD for work on parasite biochemistry with Ralph Schwarz, was a postdoc with David Roos, studying parasite cell biology, and started his own laboratory at the University of Georgia in 2000. In 2017 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now the Mark Whittier and Lila Griswold Allam Professor of Microbiology and Immunology.

Boris studies the cell and molecular biology of apicomplexan parasites. His current research focus is the parasite Cryptosporidium, a leading global cause of severe diarrhoea and mortality in young children. His lab pioneered molecular genetics and mouse models for this important infection and leads a range of interdisciplinary efforts to understand fundamental parasite biology, and to advance translation towards drugs and vaccines. Boris is also engaged in education and training. He taught undergraduate and graduate classes, directed NIH training grant programs in parasitology, served as lecturer, faculty, and director of the Biology of Parasitism summer research course at the MBL for many years, and he hosts the online Global Parasitology Seminar Series.