Frances Gillin

Affiliation: UCSD SOM

Professor of Pathology

fgillin@ucsd.edu
Phone: 619-543-6146

Biography

Education:

1963 B.S., Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (Honors Degree).

1967 Ph.D. Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH, NIH Pre-doctoral Fellow

Professional experience:

Postdoctoral Fellow: Dept. of Genetics, Stanford University, National Institutes of Health

Professor of Pathology, Division of Infectious Diseases, UCSD Member, Center for Molecular Genetics

Research Summary

Giardia is a major cause of waterborne intestinal disease and is also of basic biological interest as one of the earliest known eukaryotic organisms, with both prokaryotic and eukaryotic properties. Our group's orientation is unusual because we focus broadly on this organism and are not tied to specific techniques (Ann. Rev. Microbiol. 50: 679-705,1996). Our lab has completed the giardial life cycle in vitro for the first time, by inducing the flagellated "trophozoite" form that colonizes the small intestine to differentiate into cysts that survive in the environment. We discovered a novel regulated secretory pathway for the transport of cyst wall proteins during encystation. Cysts infect a new host by responding to signals from the host that lead to a rapid and dramatic differentiation. Excystation entails establishing cellular polarity, cell division, attachment, increases in metabolism, and antigenic switching.

Current questions include:

1. How are giardial genes regulated during differentiation?

2. What are the cell signaling pathways in differentiation and pathogenesis?

3. What is the nature of giardial "crosstalk" with the host' intestinal epithelium?

4. What are the structure and function of the unusual cysteine-rich variant surface protein of Giardia?

5. What can Giardial genes and pathways tell us about the evolution of the eukaryotic cell?

6. How does Giardia make people sick?

References

References From PubMed (NCBI)