Characterizing structures of human monoclonal antibodies against novel P. falciparum blood-stage antigens

Monoclonal antibodies have emerged in recent years as powerful tools to guide vaccine design and potentially to directly prevent infectious disease. Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, is a relatively unexplored pathogen in this area, with only a few major vaccine candidates dominating the field despite the thousands of proteins expressed by the parasite. This project aims to isolate, characterize and determine the structures of human monoclonal antibodies against known and novel P. falciparum blood-stage antigens using cutting-edge technology. This collaborative project combines the expertise of the Tan lab in isolating human monoclonal antibodies against infectious pathogens and the expertise of the Higgins lab in solving crystal structures of antibody-antigen complexes to identify new sites of vulnerability on parasites at high resolution.