Name and Surname of the Supervisor: Giedrė Ratkevičiūtė-Cooper
Institution (Company), Department: Biotechnologijos institutas, Biotermodinamikos ir vaistų tyrimų skyrius/Institute of Biotechnology. Biothermodynamics and Drug Design Dept.
Preliminary Topic: Targeting Essential Transporters in Plasmodium falciparum.
Short Description of the Internship Work: Malaria, caused by Plasmodium falciparum, remains one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases. Understanding how this parasite survives and replicates is essential for developing new antimalarial therapies.
Hello! My name is Giedrė, and from September I will be starting my own research group at Vilnius University, supported by the My First Research Team programme. Previously, I worked at the University of Oxford, where I studied the molecular machinery that enables malaria parasites to invade human cells using structural biology, biochemistry, and biophysics. My lab will investigate the Inner Membrane Complex (IMC), a unique parasite organelle that contains membrane transport proteins with largely unknown functions. Using cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography, and protein biochemistry, we aim to uncover how these proteins work and whether they could become new antimalarial drug targets. I am looking for enthusiastic students interested in structural biology, biochemistry, and infectious disease research. If you enjoy tackling challenging biological questions and would like to help build a new research group, I would love to hear from you!
Useful links: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714866v1.article-metrics
Qualification Requirements (Degree): BSc, MSc
Application Deadline: 2026-10-30