Katherine de Villiers, Ph.D.

Katherine de Villiers is a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Her research group is focused on understanding the heme detoxification pathway in the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. In the absence of the heme oxygenase machinery that is employed by mammals to catabolize heme, these parasites sequester toxic heme in the form of crystalline hemozoin, and disruption of this process underpins the mechanism of action of numerous clinical antimalarial drugs.

As a Simons Foundation Pivot Fellow, de Villiers hopes to apply this knowledge to better understand the circumstances under which hemozoin formation becomes relevant in mammals. To this end, de Villiers looks forward to gaining expertise in molecular biology and genetics in order to dissect and understand the molecular pathways that function to regulate cellular heme levels. At the end of the fellowship, she hopes to understand the lysosomal conditions under which mammalian hemozoin formation is initiated, the impact of hemozoin inhibition on heme homeostasis, and whether there are alternate heme transport mechanisms in the absence of HRG1. Directly related to the regulation of heme is iron homeostasis (since iron is the central atom in every heme molecule), and in the future, de Villiers hopes to use her fellowship training to advance the understanding of diseases of excess iron, such as African iron overload.