Protein Phosphorylation in Parasites – Novel Targets for Antiparasitic Intervention

Volume Editors Christian Doerig obtained his PhD in molecular virology at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland. After a post-doctoral training on herpes simplex virus in the USA, he turned his attention to malaria and pioneered the study of protein phosphorylation in Plasmodium. He is Directeur de Recherches at the French biomedical research agency Inserm and established the first Inserm units in the UK at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow and subsequently in Switzerland at the Inserm-EPFL joint laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. In 2011, he joined Monash University in Melbourne, AUS, as Head of the Department of Microbiology, focusing on kinomics, cell proliferation, and development of malaria parasites. Gerald Spath studied biology at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. He carried out his PhD thesis at the Institut Pasteur and joined Washington University Medical School in Saint Louis, USA, to carry out his post-doctoral training on the analysis of Leishmania virulence genes. He obtained his first faculty appointment in 2001 at the NYU Medical School, New York, USA, and created his research unit in 2005 at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, where he applies phospho-proteomics approaches to define Leishmania-specific signaling pathways as novel drug targets. Gerald Spath is currently Associate Professor at the Institut Pasteur, where he coordinates the Leishmania research of the Institut Pasteur International Network. Martin Wiese studied biology, microbiology, biochemistry and parasitology at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Tubingen, Germany. He obtained his PhD for his studies on Leishmania at the Max-Planck Institute for Biology, laying the foundation for his studies on mitogen-activated protein kinases of Leishmania. In 2001 he became independent research group leader at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. Since 2007 he is a John Anderson Research Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. His research is focused on parasite protein kinases as drug targets and the identification of signaling pathways in Leishmania using phosphoproteomics, molecular parasitology and protein biochemistry. Series Editor Paul M. Selzer studied biology, parasitology, and biochemistry at the University of Tubingen, Germany, where he also received his PhD in biochemistry. He spent three years at the Molecular Design Institute and the Parasitology and Tropical Disease Research Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. During his career he has worked as a researcher and scientific manager for several pharmaceutical companies, and is currently Director, Molecular Discovery Sciences at MSD Animal Health Innovation GmbH, Germany. He is also a visiting professor and teacher at the Biochemistry Institute of the University of Tubingen, and an honorary professor of the Department of Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation at the University of Glasgow, UK.