Michael Blackman
Mike Blackman was born in Stockport in the UK, and obtained a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Leeds in 1981. He worked on interferon gamma in Alan Morris’ group at the University of Warwick, where he studied for an MSc by research in 1985. That same year he took up a post as a research officer in the Medical Research Council’s unit in The Gambia, West Africa, where he worked on the role of antibodies in protection against malaria. It was here that he developed his interest in malaria and in particular the mechanistic basis of host cell invasion by the malaria parasite. Mike returned to the UK in 1988 to study for a PhD in Tony Holder’s lab at the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Mill Hill. Following graduation he stayed at NIMR, taking up a career track appointment and then being awarded tenure in 2000. Mike moved to the new Francis Crick Institute as a Senior Group Leader in 2017.
Mike’s research work focuses on malaria, a devastating disease that impacts on the lives of about half of the world’s population. Mike has a particular interest in understanding the mechanisms by which the parasite that causes the most dangerous form of malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) enters and destroys red blood cells. His work aims to translate the outcomes of this research into health benefits by seeking drug-like inhibitors of these processes and promoting their development as new types of antimalarial drugs.
Mike holds a position as Visiting Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London and is Professor of Molecular Parasitology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Amongst other roles he is also Academic Editor of the scientific journal PLoS Pathogens and a member of the Wellcome Trust Pathogen Biology and Disease Transmission Expert Review Group.
Abstracts this author is presenting: