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Editors-in-Chief

Kasturi Haldar

orcid.org/0000-0001-5065-158X

Biography

Kasturi Haldar, the Julius Nieuwland Professor of Biology and Parsons-Quinn Director for the Center for Rare and Neglected Diseases at the University of Notre Dame is an authority on the mechanisms by which human malaria parasites remodel their host cells. Her laboratory pioneered the application of modern cell biological tools to studying malarial infection of the erythrocyte. They identified a novel transport signal that enables parasite protein to access the host erythrocyte and thus defined secretome of several hundred parasite effectors involved in virulence and structural remodeling of the host. Other major achievements include the identification of the pathway of parasite protein export to the erythrocyte and demonstration that the host targeting signal of malaria parasites is shared by the Irish potato famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans.

The Haldar lab also identified novel malarial Golgi dynamics that underlie a lipid rich, nutrient import pathway in infected erythrocytes and enable transport of cholesterol-rich host 'raft' complexes, essential nutrient solutes and lipids to the malarial vacuole. They have further established that the sterol biosynthetic pathway and cholesterol are important to intracellular infection by Salmonella.

In addition, Haldar and her colleagues have shown that adrenergic signaling is an active process in erythrocyte and required for malaria invasion and growth. They have established erythrocyte signaling pathways can be targets for malarial infection and may be important for treatment of malaria.

Education

  • B.Sc., Bryn Mawr College
  • Ph.D., Biochemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Rockefeller University

Awards and Honors

  • Elected Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
  • Elected Fellow, American Academy for the Advancement of Science
  • Burroughs Wellcome Fund, New Investigator Award and New Initiatives in Malaria Award

Selected Publications

  1. Safeukui I, Gomez ND, Adelani AA, Burte F, Afolabi NK, Akondy R, et al. (2015) Malaria Induces Anemia through CD8+ T Cell-Dependent Parasite Clearance and Erythrocyte Removal in the Spleen. mBio 6(1):e02493-14
  2. Jauréguiberry S, Ndour PA, Roussel C, Ader F, Safeukui I, Nguyen M, et al. (2014) Postartesunate delayed hemolysis is a predictable event related to the lifesaving effect of artemisinins. Blood 124(2):167-75
  3. Bhattacharjee S, Stahelin RV, Speicher KD, Speicher DW, Haldar K (2012) Endoplasmic Reticulum PI(3)P lipid binding targets malaria proteins to the host cell. Cell 148(1-2):201-212
  4. Tamez PA, Liu H, Fernandez-Pol S, Haldar K, Wickrema A (2009) Stage-specific susceptibility of human erythroblasts to Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection. Blood 22;114(17):3652-5
  5. van Ooij C, Tamez P, Bhattacharjee S, Hiller NL, Harrison T, Liolios K, et al. (2008) The malaria secretome: from algorithms to essential function in blood stage infection. PLoS Pathog 4(6):e1000084
  6. Tamez PA, Bhattacharjee S, van Ooij C, Hiller NL, Llinás M, Balu B, et al. (2008) An Erythrocyte Vesicle Protein Exported by the Malaria Parasite Promotes Tubovesicular Lipid Import from the Host Cell Surface. PLOS Pathog 4(8):e1000118.
  7. Bhattacharjee S, Hiller NL, Liolios K, Win J, Kanneganti TD, Young C, Kamoun S, Haldar K (2006) The malarial host-targeting signal is conserved in the Irish potato famine pathogen. PLOS Pathog 2(5):e50

Grant McFadden

orcid.org/0000-0002-2556-3526

Biography

Grant McFadden is currently the Director of The Biodesign Institute’s Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines and Virotherapy at Arizona State University.

He was previously a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida, College of Medicine. For the past 30 years, his lab has been investigating how viruses, particularly poxviruses, evade the immune system.

The McFadden lab currently studies poxvirus host range genes that are critical determinants of cellular tropism and also to investigate the inhibition of cellular inflammasomes and NFkB signaling by poxviruses. His lab has pioneered the field of viral immunomodulation, and is credited with the discovery of a wide variety of viral inhibitors of the immune system. These include virus-encoded modulators of extracellular pathways, cell surface molecules, and intracellular pathways. McFadden co-coined the term “anti-immunology” to describe this growing field of research. McFadden is a member of the WHO research oversight Committee on Variola Virus research and is often consulted internationally about issues related to bioterrorism and biosecurity. McFadden is a co-founder of Viron Therapeutics, Inc. to develop the use of viral proteins for therapeutic purposes against systemic inflammatory diseases. He has recently formed a partnership with DNAtrix Corporation to develop myxoma virus as an oncolytic virotherapeutic to treat cancer.

Before becoming joint Editor-in-Chief for PLOS Pathogens in 2013, McFadden served as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief starting in 2007. He is also a senior Editor for Journal of Virology, and he serves on the Editorial Boards of a variety of other scholarly journals in the area of virology and immunology.

Education

  • B.Sc., Biochemistry, McGill University
  • Ph.D., Biochemistry, McGill University
  • Sabbatical Research, Harvard Medical School

Awards and Honors

  • Elected Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
  • Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Scholarship

Selected Publications

  1. Bell J, McFadden G (2014) Viruses for tumor therapy. Cell Host Microbe 15(3):260-265
  2. Damon I, Damaso CR, McFadden G (2014) Are we there yet? The smallpox research agenda using live variola virus. PLoS Pathog 10(5):e1004108
  3. Chan W, McFadden G (2014) Oncolytic poxviruses. Annu Rev Virol 1:191-214
  4. Rahman MM, Liu J, Chan W, Rothenberg S, McFadden G (2013) Myxoma virus protein M029 is a dual function immunomodulator that inhibits PKR and also conscripts RHA/DHX9 to promote expanded host tropism and viral replication. PLoS Pathog 9(7):e1003465
  5. McFadden G (2010) Killing a Killer: What next for Smallpox? PLoS Pathog 6(1):e1000727
  6. Rahman MM, Mohamed MR, Kim M, Smallwood S, McFadden G (2009) Co-regulation of NF-κB and inflammasome-mediated inflammatory responses by Myxoma virus pyrin domain-containing protein M013. PLoS Pathog 5(10):e1000635