Alex Paredez earned his B.S. in 1998 at UC San Diego.  During his senior year he began working on the role of actin binding proteins in C. elegans embryo development, working under Rafi Aroian.  After completing his integrated B.S/M.S. in 1999, he entered a PhD program at Stanford University.  Still fascinated by the cytoskeleton, Alex worked under Chris Somerville and David Ehrhardt to study the relationship between the plant cortical microtubule array and cell wall organization earning his PhD in 2006.   Alex then went to UC Berkeley to postdoc with Zac Cande where he began studying the cytoskeleton of the protozoan parasite Giardia intestinalis.  Alex joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 2012.

Research Overview

The Paredez Lab studies Giardia lamblia, a neglected protozoan parasite.  Giardia infects more than 100 million people each year worldwide and is also the most prevalent intestinal parasite in the United States. Giardia belongs to an early branching group of eukaryotes known as Excavates.  Notably, Giardia lacks several conventional organelles and has a minimalistic genome without many well studied proteins and pathways that are essential for its mammalian host. The focus of the Paredez lab is identification of essential yet divergent cellular processes in Giardia that can be leveraged against the parasite for novel therapeutic interventions. Our interest in Giardia also extends to the power of its minimalism in revealing broadly interesting fundamental principles of cell and developmental biology.