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Sangha Mitra Biotechnology Professional and Consultant MBA candidate, December 2012 Health Sector Management Boston University School of Management Giardia lamblia is an intestinal pathogen that causes giardiasis, popularly known as beaver fever or backpacker's diarrhea. Giardia is a flagellate protozoan that inhabits the digestive tract of a wide variety of domestic and wild animal species, as well as humans. It is a common cause of gastroenteritis in humans, infecting approximately 200 million people worldwide. Giardia lamblia uses activated forms of glucose to make glycogen and activated forms of mannose to make glycophosphosphoinositol anchors. A necessary step for glucose activation is isomerization of glucose-6-phosphate to glucose-1-phosphate by a phosphoglucomutase (PGM). Similarly, a phosphomannomutase (PMM) converts mannose-6-phosphate to mannose-1-phosphate. Whole genome sequences of Giardia predict two PGM candidates, no PMM candidate is present. I discovered that one of the Giardia PGM’s is a novel eukaryotic PGM that also has PMM activity. Related Publications: 1. Mitra, S., Cui, J., Robbins, P. W. and Samuelson, J. “A deeply divergent phosphoglucomutase (PGM) of Giardia lamblia has both PGM and phosphomannomutase activities.” Glycobiology, 2010 Oct; 20(10):1233-40. [Read abstract here] Back to R&D