I am Alena Pance and I am a scientist at the Sanger Institute.
I specialise in cell and molecular biology and use these skills to study Malaria.
In simple terms Malaria is a debilitating disease that affects the tropical world and beyond.
It is caused by a single cell parasite transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes.
The Malaria parasite has a complex life cycle and in the human host goes through several stages.
In the lab I concentrate on the blood life cycle.
Malaria parasites are infectious organisms so in order to work with them we need a special lab.
These are CL3 or Containment Level 3 laboratories.
The purpose of the CL3 is to protect the workers outside as well as those inside working with the infectious organism.
For this we need protective clothing, in the form of a lab coat and gloves.
We culture the parasite in plastic flasks and petri dishes, using blood from the NHS blood and transfusion centre.
Malaria parasites need special conditions to grow in the lab;
a specific mix of gas, a 37 degree environment - to mimic the body temperature - and a fresh supply of blood.
In the CL3 we work in hoods, this serves to protect the worker from the parasite and also
to protect the cultures from any contaminating agents that might be in the environment.
In the hood we have bleach containers to dispose of anything that has been in contact with the parasite.
We take a sample of the culture, we put it on a slide and smear it, let it dry,
then the slide needs to be fixed and stained with Giemsa,
which is a blue colourant that will allow us to see the red blood cells and the parasites on a microscope.
On the microscope, what we look for is the stages of the parasite that are present in the culture,
so we see the red blood cells in light blue and within the red blood cells we can see darker purplish forms of the parasite.
The very small ones are Rings that will then grow into bigger parasites called Trophozoites
and these will start multiplying and forming a Shizont.
This is the mature form of the parasite that will burst out of the red blood cell and invade new cells.
We genetically modify the parasite to knock out or modify certain genes
in order to assess whether these are involved in the disease.
We also introduce fluorescent proteins into the parasite to be able to follow it throughout the infection
and assess its ability to invade particular red blood cells.
I was always fascinated by the natural world and I always wanted to understand how things work.
To be able to see the cells and the parasites, and work on their interactions, that is very exciting.