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Malcolm Gardner, Ph.D.

		Member, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute Email: malcolm.gardner@sbri.org Disease under study: Malaria

Mission
At SBRI, Dr. Gardner is working in conjunction with other scientists in the Malaria Antigen Discovery (MAD) Program to exploit the genome sequence of human and animal malaria parasites to discover new vaccines or drugs for malaria.

Research
Prior to joining SBRI, Dr. Gardner led efforts at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) to sequence the genomes of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the related cattle parasite Theileria parva.  He is now directing his efforts toward hypothesis-driven research using a mixture of traditional molecular biological and high throughput approaches including genomics, functional genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.  His areas of research include:

Sequencing of full-length P. falciparum cDNAs and genome curation: Dr. Gardner is continuing his work in Plasmodium genomics to improve the genome annotation by the generation and sequencing of full-length cDNAs.  Dr. Gardner also wants to develop a long-term effort to curate the P. falciparum genome sequence, as it's critical for the genome annotation to be kept up to date in order to maintain its usefulness to the malaria research community.

Function of the apicoplast in Plasmodium and related parasites: The malaria parasite Plasmodium and related parasites such as Toxoplasma and Theileria contain an organelle called the apicoplast that was derived from a secondary endosymbiotic event.  Many studies have shown that a functional apicoplast is essential for parasite survival, and that inhibition of apicoplast functions via drug treatments can kill the parasite.  Dr. Gardner is developing a program using comparative genomics to identify phylogenetically conserved apicoplast proteins and functional assays to determine the functions of novel apicoplast proteins.

Identification and characterization of novel antigens in Plasmodium and other intracellular pathogens: While the P. falciparum genome sequence has been instrumental in the identification of new drug targets, less progress has been made towards the identification of novel vaccine antigens, in part due to the lack of high throughput in vitro systems for the identification of antigens that are targets of protective humoral or cellular immune responses.  Dr. Gardner is combining his background in genomics, Plasmodium biology and bioinformatics, with Dr. Ruobing Wang's expertise (another SBRI principal investigator) in the fields of immunology, assay development and vaccine development, to advance new "genomes-to-antigens" methodology to enable faster identification of vaccine candidate antigens.

Themes

• Plasmodium genome

• Function of the apicoplast in Plasmodium and related parasite

• Identification of vaccine candidate antigens  

Laboratory Accomplishments

• Coordinated the analysis and publication of the P. falciparum genome sequence

• Directed the sequencing and annotation of 4. P. falciparum chromosomes

• Sequenced the genome of the host-cell transforming cattle parasite Theileria parva

• Generated ESTs and BAC-end sequences for the Anopheles gambiae genome project
   

Dr. Gardner's research is currently supported by funding from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and SBRI.

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