Brendan Farrell

Over the moon to share that this has now been published in @Nature! Congrats to everyone involved! Check it out here - rdcu.be/dt907 Or watch us chat about it here - youtu.be/gOMMK49rhmg

Check out our latest study on the PfRIPR protein, essential for the malaria parasite to get inside our blood cells. We show how antibodies block the function of PfRIPR by preventing its flexible hinges from bending, or by stopping it from compacting as part of its mechanism.

A lovely collaboration with Josh Tan's group at NIH. Thanks to everyone on the team for their hard work! Read our preprint here: biorxiv.org/content/10.648…

How do antibodies against PfRIPR act to impede erythrocyte invasion? In our latest study, we isolate and structurally characterise a panel of human antibodies and the growth inhibitory antibody RP.012, revealing an unexpected story of synergy and antagonism.

New online! Erythrocyte invasion in malaria: from molecular mechanisms to rational vaccines nature.com/articles/s4157…

Delighted to share the final version of Richard Zhou's study on how the CD163 scavenger receptor cleans up after toxic haemoglobin spills out from our blood cells. An amazing grabber mechanism! rdcu.be/ewPA2

How the #malaria #parasite evades the immune system… and how the human body fights back: Sam Chamberlain and Matt Higgins @Oxford_uni make ground-breaking discovery, just published in @Nature. Read more: bit.ly/202506-higgins

@nawsad_alam presented our structure-guided design of RH5top, our latest blood stage-malaria vaccine immunogen in talk and poster at the Malaria Gordon conference. The culmination of many studies from the lab and doing well in pre-clinical testing! More soon.

New science from Richard Zhou... When our blood cells lyse, they release haemoglobin, which is dangerous to our body. We detoxify this by binding it to a serum protein, haptoglobin and taking it up into macrophages, using the receptor CD163. Richard showed how CD163 works!

Delighted that we have been selected as the cover story(ies) for the current issue of Cell! Thanks to @CellCellPress for selecting us and to everyone for your hard work on this, especially co-authors @Lawreate7 and @brendanfarrell. cell.com/cell/issue?pii… 1/12

In the latest issue! Natural malaria infection elicits rare but potent neutralizing antibodies to the blood-stage antigen RH5 dlvr.it/TCxsfN

The new issue is out 👉cell.com/cell/current Featuring allogeneic CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy for severe refractory autoimmune diseases, and an in-depth analysis of antibody responses induced by malaria infection and vaccine candidate RH5.⁠ ⁠ The cover image shows a Plasmodium falciparum merozoite invading an erythrocyte, with the merozoite apex reoriented towards the surface of the erythrocyte.⁠ Credit: Elizabeth Fischer, Andrew Cooper, Ababacar Diouf, and Alan Hoofring⁠

How does the deadly human-infective pathogen Entamoeba histolytica recognise our cells and cause liver abscesses? Check out our latest study, led by @SFGerard2018. Sam shows the structure of the critical amoeba lectin and how it recognises carbohydrates found on human cells.

Congrats Stephan!

The final version of our paper on PfRH5-targeting antibodies from people naturally infected with malaria is now out in Cell. Pioneered by @Lewreate7, @andrewcooperajr and Josh Tan, who identified these antibodies. It was a pleasure for @brendanfarrell and I to contribute.

It's been a truly unforgettable 'pinch me' year of science, and I'm counting my lucky stars. Thank you again for everyone's support these past few years! 9/n

Our lab's first foray into this is the design of RH5-34EM, a scaffolded epitope mimic presenting the most potent epitope of RH5, targeted by antibody R5.034, which we structurally characterise and you read more about here: biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 8/n

Delighted to share our latest story with Joshua Tan's group, a deep dive into the natural infection antibody response to RH5, out now in Cell. cell.com/cell/fulltext/… 1/n 🧵