Among SBRI’s researchers, staff and senior scientists are often regarded as “second in command” in their laboratories, supporting the work of principal investigators and the Institute as a whole. These individuals have completed postdoctoral training and demonstrated their ability to design their own research projects and those of junior research staff.

By providing high-level expertise and leadership, these scientists strengthen an existing research area or help to develop a new one. Staff and senior scientists design and evaluate experiments, develop ideas that promote current research and attend and give seminars. A difference between these two positions is often the career path of the scientist; while some may not be aiming for an independent member-level position, others may ultimately build their own independent research program.

Andrew V. Oleinikov, Ph.D.
Dr. Oleinikov obtained his Ph.D. from the Moscow State University, Russia.  He has studied signaling, endocytosis, and autoimmunity as a research assistant professor at University of California, Davis, and developed high throughput technologies as a group leader at CombiMatrix Corp. His current research at SBRI is focused on identification of malaria vaccine candidates using protein and cell arrays and on RNA interference in P. falciparum, in collaboration with Patrick Duffy, M.D.

Aswini Panigrahi, Ph.D.
Dr. Panigrahi received his Ph.D. in molecular virology from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. He is a Staff Scientist scientist in the lab of Ken Stuart, Ph.D. His research focuses on the mitochondrial DNA of normal and mutant African trypanosomes.

Achim Schnaufer, Ph.D.
Dr. Schnaufer received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Bern, Switzerland.  He is an associate scientist in the lab of Ken Stuart, Ph.D.  His research is focused on developing regulatable gene silencing systems in trypanosomatids and characterizing the functional structure of the editosome which catalyzes RNA editing in trypanosomes.