London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine FACULTY OF INFECTIOUS & TROPICAL DISEASES Project Feedback Sheet 2010-11

Candidate number: 100754 MSc: Control of Infectious Diseases Project Title: What Drives silvatic trypanosome diversification ? Insights form the molecular epidemiology of Trypanosoma cruzi in Bolivia Project Type: Standard Agreed Grade 5/5

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Marker 1 This is a laudable report. The abstract nicely describes the content and outcomes of the project.

The introduction is a well-written description of the context to the project, covering the background to the complexity of T. cruzi population structure, and relevance of MLMT to help further understanding of it. The literature review is up-to-date, and contains the key references. Aims and objectives are clearly stated. The methods section is very nicely written, and gives the reader sufficient information to understand the subsequent data presentation. Results are presented in a logical and cogent way, and clearly explain the data and their significance. Conclusions have been drawn from the data generated in this project work and been discussed in a nicely structured way. The inclusion of a consideration of limitations and directions for future work is also commendable Overall, this report is a very clear and well written account of an attempt to use a molecular approach to investigate a complex epidemiological situation. Tables, graphs, and figures have been well presented. Aims and objectives have been well met. This is a report worthy of strong praise. A comment for future reports: The pictures of the PCR and RFLP gels would be better placed in the Results section, rather than the Methods. This would help the flow of the report.