Joana Carneiro da Silva, PhD

1992                B.Sc., Biology, Universidade Clássica de Lisboa, Faculty of Sciences, Lisbon, Portugal

2000                Ph.D., Genetics, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA (Advisor: Margaret G Kidwell)

2000-2002       Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellow, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA (Advisor: Alexey A Kondrashov)

2002-2005       Staff Scientist, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), Rockville, MD, USA (Advisor: Jane M Carlton)

My group applies evolutionary genetics and genomic sciences to basic and translational research of parasitic infectious diseases. I have been studying infectious disease genomics since 2002. At The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) I was part of the team that launched the field of parasite genomics, with the publication of the genome of several Plasmodium and trypanosomatid species, Theileria parva and Trichomonas vaginalis. At the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, we have ongoing projects on several parasites in the phylum Apicomplexa, with a focus on the causative agents of malaria in humans (genus  Plasmodium), theileriosis in cattle and horses (genus Theileria), human and bovine babesiosis (genus  Babesia), and human cryptosporidiosis (genus  Cryptosporidium).

Ongoing projects include the study of species biology and evolution, and the nature of host-parasite interactions, based on comparative genomics, and studies on the impact of pathogen genetic variation on drug resistance, vaccine efficacy and vaccine design, informed by population genomics data. Our research has been funded by NSF, NIH, USDA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Parasites: Plasmodium, Cryptosporidium, Babesia, Theileria; -omics: comparative genomics, transcriptomics, single cell transcriptomics Vaccinology: genomics of vaccine design and vaccine efficacy

Scalsky R, Dwivedi A, Stabler T, Mbambo G, Ouattara A, Lyke KE, Takala-Harrison S, Silva JC. Whole-genome sieve analysis: identification of protective malaria antigens by leveraging allele-specific vaccine efficacy. Vaccine. 2025 Mar 19;50:126783. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.126783. PMID: 39923546.

de Albuquerque NRM, Ladeia WA, Scalsky RJ, Dwivedi A, Stabler TC, Rodrigues PT, de Oliveira TC, Silva JC, and Ferreira UM. Plasmodium simium: birth and evolution of a zoonotic malaria parasite species. Parasitology. 2025. Jul 16:1-43. doi: 10.1017/S0031182025100310. PMID: 40665206

Stabler TC, Dwivedi A, Guo B, Shrestha B, Joshi S, Rivas MR, Donfack OT, Guerra CA, García GA, Daubenberger C, Silva JC. Regular Plasmodium falciparum importation onto Biolo Island, Equatorial Guinea, hampers malaria elimination from the island. PLoS Global Public Health 2025 Aug 19;5(8):e0004999. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0004999. PMID: 40828792

Mbambo G, Dwivedi A, Ifeonu OO, Munro JB, Shrestha B, Bromley RE, Hodges T, Adkins RS, Kouriba B, Diarra I, Niangaly A, Kone AK, Coulibaly D, Traore K, Dolo A, Thera MA, Laurens MB, Doumbo OK, Plowe CV, Berry AA, Travassos M, Lyke KE, Silva JC. Immunogenomic profile at baseline predicts host susceptibility to clinical malaria disease. Front Immunol. 2023 Jul 3;14:1179314. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1179314. eCollection 2023. PMID: 37465667

Palmateer NC, K Tretina, J Orvis, J Crabtree, E Drabék, R Pelle, E Awino, HT Gotia, V Nene, L Tallon, CA Daubenberger, DP Knowles, RP Bishop, JC Silva. Capture-based enrichment method reveals extremely high genome-wide sequence diversity inTheileria parva, an intracellular pathogen of host lymphocytes. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2020 Oct 29;14(10):e0008781. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008781. PMID: 33119590.

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