Rationale

The symptoms of severe or fulminant toxoplasmosis is the direct result of rapid tissue destruction through lytic growth (see below) of the tachyzoite form of the parasite and the concomitant immune response.

Since Toxoplasma replication need to take place inside of host cells, invasion of these cells is an essential step of its life cycle and warrants detailed investigation. We can differentiate three stages of invasion: Attachement, penetration, and complete invasion but the methods used to date are inadequate to clearly identify changes in one or more of these steps.

Furthermore because penetration is rapid it has to date been unfeasable to obtain population-based measurements of this step. Using compartmental modeling we will be able to investigate each step independently from the others as well as obtaining population based measurements.