Position

Senior Research Fellow/ARC Australian Research Fellow

Department of Biochemistry
La Trobe University,
VIC 3086 AUSTRALIA

Tel: 61-3-9479 6563
Fax: 61-3-9479 2467
Email: a.maier@latrobe.edu.au
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/biochemistry/lab/maier/index.htm

Research interests

Our focus is the identification of malaria molecules and their mechanisms responsible for the disease process during a malaria infection. Of particular interest are chaperones that are exported into the red blood cells by the malaria parasites and which may play a major role in the display of virulence factors.

Qualifications

BSc (Southern Colorado)
Diplom Biologe (Tuebingen, Germany)
Dr. rer. nat. (Heidelberg, Germany)

Ten Most Significant Publications

1. Alexander G. Maier, Melanie Rug, Monica Brown, Matthew T. O'Neill, Srabasti Chakravorty, Tadge Szestak, Joanne Chesson, Yang Wu, Katie Hughes, Ross Coppel, Chris Newbold, James Beeson, Alister Craig, Brendan S. Crabb and Alan F. Cowman: Exported Proteins Required for Virulence and Rigidity of Plasmodium falciparum-Infected Human Erythrocytes, Cell, 2008 Jul 11, 134:48-61

2. Marthe C. D'Ombrain, Till S. Voss, Alexander G. Maier, J. Andrew Pearce, Diana S. Hansen, Alan F. Cowman and Louis Schofield: Plasmodium falciparum Erythrocyte Membrane Protein-1 suppresses early IFN-G Production by GD-T, NK and AB-T cells via CD36 independent pathway, Cell Host & Microbe, 2007 Aug 16, 2(2):130-138

3. Alexander G. Maier*, Melanie Rug*, Matthew T. O'Neill, James Beeson, Matthias Marti, John Reeder and Alan F. Cowman: Skeleton Binding Protein 1 functions at the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane to traffic PfEMP1 to the Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocyte surface, Blood 2007 Feb, 109(3): 1289-1297 (* equal contribution)

4. Alexander G. Maier, Joanna A. M. Braks, Andrew P. Waters and Alan F. Cowman: Negative selection using yeast cytosine deaminase/uracil phosphoribosyl transferase in Plasmodium falciparum for targeted gene deletion by double crossover recombination, Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology 2006 Nov; 150(1): 118-121

5. Jake Baum, Alexander G. Maier, Robert T. Good, Ken Simpson and Alan F. Cowman: Invasion by Plasmodium falciparum merozoites suggests a hierarchy of molecular interactions, PLoS Pathogens 2005 1 (4) e37

6. Janine Stubbs, Ken Simpson, Tony Triglia, David Plouffe, Christopher J. Tonkin, Manoj T. Duraisingh, Alexander G. Maier, Elizabeth Winzeler and Alan F. Cowman: Molecular mechanism for switching of P. falciparum invasion pathways into human erythrocytes, Science 2005 309 (5739) 1384-7.

7. Manoj T. Duraisingh, Alexander G. Maier, Tony Triglia and Alan F. Cowman: The erythrocyte binding antigen-175 functions in invasion of human erythrocytes by Plasmodium falciparum utilizing sialic acid-dependent and -independent pathways, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (8) (2003) 4796-4801

8. Alexander G. Maier, Manoj T. Duraisingh, John C. Reeder, Sheral S. Patel, James W. Kazura, Peter A. Zimmerman and Alan F. Cowman: Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte invasion via glycophorin C and selection for Gerbich-negativity in human populations, Nature Medicine 9 (1) (2003) 87-92

9. Alexander G. Maier, Patrick Lorenz, Frank Voncken, Christine Clayton: An essential dimeric membrane protein of trypanosome glycosomes, Molecular Microbiology 39 (6) (2001) 1443-1451

10. Patrick Lorenz, Alexander Maier, Eveline Baumgart, Christine Clayton: Elongation and clustering of glycosomes in Trypanosoma brucei overexpressing the glycosomal Pex11p, EMBO Journal 17 (1998) 3542-3555

Currently Held Grants

2007-09: Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Project Grant: A.G. Maier, M. Rug. Functional Genomic Analysis of Exported DNAJ Molecules in the Malaria Parasite Plasmodium falciparum. ID461241

2008-12: Australian Research Council (ARC): Australian Research Fellowship 0878953