Speaker: Greg Martin, Postdoctoral Associate - Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute

Title: Deciphering the immune response to malaria and novel ion channel biology with cryo-EM

Abstract: Despite the pressing need, there is currently no effective vaccine for malaria, owing in part to the complex biology of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.  Our group uses cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography, and a host of biophysical and immunologic techniques to reverse-engineer the immune response to malaria in order to develop a next-generation transmission-blocking vaccine.  I will present my work on deciphering the mechanism of protection from malaria infection by antibodies and how this may inform vaccine design.  In addition, I will present my thesis research which, through cryo-EM and functional experiments, uncovered novel regulatory mechanisms in the pancreatic K_ATP channel.