Andrew MacLean

Postdoc

During my PhD with Dr Janneke Balk at the John Innes Centre I worked on mitochondria from a diverse range of organisms, including yeast, humans and plants. I was interested in the respiratory chain, especially complex I, and FeS cluster biogenesis. I first came across parasites when I had the opportunity to work with a parasitic plant, mistletoe, and discovered that it lacked the highly conserved respiratory complex I. Keen to continue working on the subject of mitochondria and parasites I turned to the microbial eukaryotes.

This led me to the Sheiner lab where I recently began working as a postdoctoral research assistant. I’ll be working on the mitochondria of the model apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which is highly divergent from yeast and mammalian models. Studying Toxoplasma mitochondria will help us understand the basic biology of the parasitic apicomplexans as well as help identify new drug targets.