The severity of malarial disease is influenced by interactions between the parasite, the host and environmental factors. In her third talk, Mota explains how her lab used a mouse model to study the impact of host nutritional status on disease severity. When they compared infections in calorically restricted (CR) mice and freely fed mice, they found less reproduction of the malaria parasite and a lower parasite load in CR mice.  This suggested that Plasmodium are able to sense and respond to host nutritional status.  Mota describes how her lab identified a key Plasmodium kinase, KIN, that seems to regulate parasite response to nutrient availability and may provide a target for antimalarial drugs.