Dr. Jolly's lab studies schistosomiasis, an infectious disease caused by parasitic schistosome worms.

Dr. Jolly received his B.S. from Tuskegee University in Alabama, and his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. He also completed his postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF. He started studying tropical infectious disease and parasites during this postdoc in Dr. James McKerrow’s lab. He has been at Case Western since 2009.

Schistosomiasis is found in tropical countries throughout Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and South America. This disease is caused by multiple species of parasitic worms called blood flukes or schistosomes. Blood flukes spend part of their life cycle living inside freshwater snails, which release the fluke larvae into rivers. The larvae get inside human hosts through contact with contaminated river water. Thus, it largely impacts people living in rural areas who lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation. The infection begins as a rash, and develops to include fever, cough, and diarrhea. As the worm larvae mature, they may migrate to the brain or spinal cord, leading to seizures and paralysis.

The complex life cycle of these worms — spanning multiple hosts and lasting up to 30 years — requires large-scale changes in gene expression so that the fluke can thrive in vastly different environments. Not only that, but those changes must be well coordinated, so that - for example - all of the genes needed for the snail portion of the life cycle are activated at the same time. Dr. Jolly’s research is focused on identifying transcription factors (proteins that regulate gene expression) that are associated with these large-scale changes in gene expression and how these transcription factors respond to environmental cues.