Arabela Vivar Morón
Arabela Vivar Morón — Doctoral student
My name is Arabela Vivar Morón, and I am a Ph.D. student in Oliver Billker’s lab. Prior to joining the doctoral program at the end of 2024, I graduated from the Universitat de Barcelona with a B.S. in Biochemistry in 2023, and completed the final year of the Magistère Européen de Génétique (MEG) at Université Paris Cité. In my Ph.D., I plan to explore the natural genetic variation present in different Rodent Malaria Parasites (Plasmodium vinckei & yoelii). I will perform crosses between their subspecies and expose them to diverse selection pressures during the mosquito stage to identify, from the F1 and F2 progenies, which genetic variations are adaptive. I am also interested in the oocyst stage of the parasite, testing enzymatic methods to isolate oocysts from mosquito midgut tissue with the goal of performing single-cell transcriptomics and help uncover which genes play key roles in oocyst development and sporulation. In my free time, I am trying to learn how to dance salsa. I play volleyball, football, and enjoy scoring a few points in ping-pong. I also love hiking and being outdoors trying to catch the Swedish sun.