Andrew V. Oleinikov, Ph.D.
Dr. Oleinikov is heading one of Seattle BioMed's malaria research laboratories. Together with former Seattle BioMed principal investigators Drs. Patrick Duffy and Michal Fried (both now working at NIAID/NIH), Oleinikov manages a collaborative research program on malaria pathogenesis and immunity. This program hosts two international consortia to study pregnancy malaria and children’s malaria, with funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Grand Challenges in Global Health.
The work of the Oleinikov lab is extended from Seattle to field labs in Africa. Human research on malaria is performed through a field research program in Tanzania, which was established by Drs. Fried and Duffy together with Tanzanian scientists.
Research
The Oleinikov lab studies malaria parasite biology and virulence factors. Primary research objectives include developing a pregnancy malaria vaccine, understanding immunity to severe malaria in children, identifying targets for a sterilizing vaccine that targets liver stage parasites, and developing various technologies for malaria research.
Some of the scientific approaches of the research team include high throughput functional protein array platforms to survey protective immune responses, high throughput RNA sequencing, small molecule library screening to identify anti-adhesion drugs, plasma proteome mass spectral analysis to identify disease biomarkers of severe maternal anemia, and immunofluorescence microscopy to study biology and pathophysiology of P. falciparum.
Scientific partners include scientists at National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Washington, University of California – Davis, University of Copenhagen, Pasteur Institute – Paris, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, and Sharp Laboratories of America.
Support for Oleinikov's work is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges in Global Health and National Institutes of Health.