Biography
Research
My group studies the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Research interests are centred around DNA biology, particularly the molecular mechanisms underlying DNA replication and cell cycle control in Plasmodium, which replicates by an unusual method called schizogony. I am also interested in the roles that G-quadruplex DNA and RNA structures may play in the parasite - for example, in silencing and promoting the recombination of a family of key virulence genes called var genes, whose variant expression is under epigenetic control. In fact, we have discovered that G-quadruplexes and their helicases have more general roles in genome stability/evolution in the malaria parasite, as well as influencing transcript expression at the RNA level. I have a long-standing interest in epigenetics: my postdoctoral work focussed on a group of deacetylase enzymes called sirtuins which regulate subtelomeric chromatin and virulence gene expression, and are linked to severe malaria in human patients. We are now studying other epigenetic pathways in Plasmodium, including the novel phenomenon of histone lactylation.
Alongside our research, we are actively involved in science communication, including school visits, media interviews and participation in the annual Cambridge Festival. A recent podcast interview about our ERC-funded research is found here, and a recent public engagement project is featured on a website here, or as a podcast here: 'We Shall Not Cease From Exploration - The Poetry of Research'.
Merrick lab news and events
2025:
May: A warm welcome to Cas Boshoven and Jemima Bittor, who join us in new postdoc and technician positions respectively. They replace Dr.s Jatou Mbye and Juliana Naldoni, who have moved on to postdocs at the MRC unit in The Gambia and the Waller lab (Cambridge Biochem Dept) respectively. Cas and Jemima will take up work on our Wellcome-funded project studying histone lactylation.
Apr: Congratulations to Blessing Abodunrin, who has been awarded a highly-coveted Gates Scholarship for her PhD at Cambridge. In October 2025, she will be joining the Merrick lab after completing a Masters at Covenant University in Nigeria.
Feb: This month, Prof Merrick is on the podcast about EU-funded research 'CORDIScovery'. It's one of the top three most listened-to EC podcasts across all platforms, with 22,000 ‘listens’ in 2024. Check out what European researchers are doing about malaria here!
2024:
Dec: Congratulations to Dr Juliana Naldoni who won a 'Lab Hero' award in the 2024 HelloBio Lab Heroes competition. Over 60 scientists were nominated and Dr Naldoni's 'Highly Commended' award brought her a goody bag and a certificate. The full gallery of nominees is here.
Nov: Prof Merrick appeared on the long-standing Cambridge-based podcast 'The Naked Scientists' on Nov 29th, answering listener questions about parasitology.
Oct: In October we hosted the second annual symposium for Cambridge-based parasitologists across research groups from the departments of Pathology, Biochemistry, Physics and Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR). The event was postdoc-organised and exciting research was shared on parasites including Plasmodium, Toxoplasma and Trypanosoma.
Oct: A warm welcome to two new MPhil students for the 2024-25 academic year. Alexandra Mwinbong joins us from Ghana: she holds a Mastercard foundation scholarship and will be completing an MPhil-by-research in the Merrick lab. Inaya Khan is on the MPhil in Infection Biology & Molecular Immunology programme, and will be completing her research project component in the Merrick lab.
Sept: Good luck to PhD student Megan Armstrong, who is taking 12 weeks out of her third year for a placement at 'Beneficial Bio' in Cambridge. The placement is a central part of the Cambridge BBSRC doctoral training programme: it gives all PhD students a 3-month experience of scientific work in a field outside academia. We wish Megan luck and hope that she will find her placement very Beneficial!
Aug: Prof Merrick delivered one of the keynote lectures at this year's BBSRC DTP symposium, held on August 1st at St John's college. This annual symposium is student-organised and attended by current PhD students on the DTP (including current Merrick-lab student Megan Armstrong), as well as undergraduates on Cambridge's 'Experience Postgraduate Life Sciences' summer programme. A great diversity of excellent talks was delivered by all the student speakers.
July: Congratulations to Monique Johnson who passed her PhD viva with minor corrections on July 22nd. Look out for her two first-author manuscripts, coming to a preprint server near you later in the summer.
June: Dr Merrick has been promoted in this year's round of academic promotions at Cambridge. From October 2024, she will be the Pathology Department's Professor of Parasitology. The lab celebrated, per tradition, with cake.
June: Dr Merrick has been in Manchester this week, attending one of a series of meetings convened by the Wellcome Trust to bring together Wellcome-funded PIs. More than 100 researchers at the meeting discussed Wellcome strategic priorities, funding routes, and a tremendous breadth of Wellcome-funded science - from transmissible cancers to legal & philosophical frameworks for 'everyday cyborgs' who depend on medical devices.
May: This week, the Merrick lab is at BioMalPar #20, the annual European malaria meeting, held at EMBL in Heidelberg, which is now in its 20th anniversary year. We have poster presentations of exciting new work on histone lactylation, from Nana Andoh and Ibtissam Jabre, and on Plasmodium cell-cycle checkpoints from Monique Johnson. (We also have photos from the famous BioMalPar photo booth.)
May: On May 15th, and again on May 17th, Dr Merrick gave interviews on the LBC evening news show, talking about the outbreak of cryptosporidiosis that had been newly reported in Devon. Cryptosporidium is one of the commonest causes of diarrhoeal disease outbreaks, and is related to the malaria parasite Plasmodium.
May: Our recently-concluded ERC-funded project, 'PlasmoCycle', has been featured on the EU website in a 'Results in Brief' piece. This is titled 'Unravelling the cell cycle of malaria parasites' and it summarises our work on this topic over the past 6 years - resulting thus far in 7 peer-reviewed publications with another 5 in preparation this year. Look out for the next results of this project, coming to a preprint server near you very soon!
Mar: We wish Dr Holly Craven the best of luck in her new position as the inaugural 'Roving Researcher' for the School of Biological Sciences. Holly has been a valued postdoc in the Merrick lab since 2019.
Feb: A warm welcome to Benoit Derneden, who joins the lab for 4 months from Feb to May 2024. Benoit comes to Cambridge with an Erasmus studentship from Belgium as part of his Masters degree.
Jan: Dr Merrick was invited to an event at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, held to welcome Dr John-Arne Rottingen to the Wellcome Trust. The Merrick lab is currently funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award. Dr Rottingen replaces Jeremy Farrar as the new CEO of the Wellcome Trust, having previously been The Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway.
