London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Dr David Baker is a key collaborator in a £5.4m Functional Genomics Development Initiative programme funded by the Wellcome Trust. This is an international consortium of investigators seeking to unravel the secrets of the malaria parasite genome, with a view to speeding up the development of new initiatives against malaria.

The other collaborators are Professor Chris Newbold of the University of Oxford, Dr Anthony Holder of the National Institute for Medical Research in London, Dr Alister Craig of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Dr Andrew Waters of Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, Professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Australia, Professor Anthony Wilkinson of the University of York and Dr Alasdair Ivens of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

By pooling their expertise and using the latest technologies, the team aims to speed up the pace of discovery. As one of the team, Dr Anthony Holder explains: 'In the last 20 years, only about 20 proteins have been characterized, whereas in the next ten years, we may characterize several hundred proteins. These findings will feed into applied research for new drugs, treatments and vaccines for malaria'.

Dr David Baker comments: 'I am delighted to be playing an important role in this major initiative, which we hope will help to bring new hope in the fight against malaria, which causes up to 2.7 million unnecessary deaths every year'.

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