Dr Andrew Maclean

MRC Research Fellow

Biography

Background

MRC Career Development Fellow, University of Edinburgh (2025- present)

Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Glasgow (2021-2025)

Postdoctoral Scientist, University of Glasgow (2018-2020)

Postdoctoral Scientist, John Innes Centre (2017-2018) 

Qualifications

PhD -  John Innes Centre, University of East Anglia (2017)

BA - Biological Sciences, University of Oxford (2013)

 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Research summary

The lab works on understanding parasite metabolism and key areas where this differs from the host. We primarily use the apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii as a model and use a wide variety of biochemical, structural, microscopy and molecular parasitology approaches to untangle how parasites feed themselves.

The apicomplexans are a group of obligate intracellular parasites that place an enormous burden on human and animal health, causing diseases of global importance such as malaria, toxoplasmosis and cryptosporidiosis. Malaria is caused by Plasmodium spp and results in >600,000 deaths annually. Toxoplasma gondii, the causative agent of toxoplasmosis, causes fatal encephalitis in those with weakened immune systems and causes congenital toxoplasmosis, resulting in serious birth defects and stillbirth, with >200,000 cases recorded annually.

Frontline drugs have many drawbacks including severe side effects, evolution of resistance and incomplete clearance of chronic stages of the parasite, particularly in the case of Toxoplasma. New drugs and therapeutic interventions are urgently required. Many existing drugs target metabolic pathways in the parasite that are absent, or at least highly divergent, in the host. Therefore, understanding parasite metabolism, and the key areas it diverges from the host, is important for developing new and effective therapeutic strategies.

Intracellular parasites, such as Toxoplasma, must fulfil their metabolic needs by stealing all the nutrients needed to replicate and cause infection from the host cell environment. Nutrients can be acquired by specialised transporter proteins. Importantly, transporters present in the host are often absent in the parasite, as they have evolved novel parasite-specific transporters. Transporters are particularly abundant hits in drug screens, and numerous medications target transporters. Identifying and understanding how parasitic transporters work is therefore important, although to date few have been characterised in detail. The lab aims to identify and explore new routes of nutrient acquisition with a special focus on the uptake of important sulphur-containing nutrients.

This article was published on