Alan Brown

Alan Brown joined the lab’ in its early days in Cambridge after a Ph.D. with Tom Blundell. He was the sole postdoctoral researcher from 2009-2012 and led our studies of PfEMP1 proteins and their interactions with ICAM-1.

Alan went on to a hugely successful postdoctoral position with Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, where he pioneered electron-cryomicroscopy methods to solve structures such as the mitochondrial ribosome. He now leads his own laboratory in Harvard (https://brown.hms.harvard.edu).

Publications while in the Higgins lab:

Brown, A. and Higgins, M.K. (2010) Carbohydrate binding molecules in malaria pathology. Curr. Op. Struct. Biol. 20 560-566

Brown, A., Turner, L., Christoffersen, S., Andrews, K.A., Szestak, T., Zhao, Y., Larsen, S., Craig, A.G. and Higgins, M.K. (2013) Molecular architecture of a complex between a PfEMP1 adhesion protein from the malaria parasite and ICAM-1. J. Biol. Chem. 288 5992-6003

Higgins, M.K., Tkachenko, O., Brown, A., Reed, J., Raper, J. and Carrington, M. (2013) Structure of the trypanosome haptoglobin-hemoglobin receptor and implications for nutrient uptake and innate immunity. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA 110 1905-1910

Bengtsson, A., Joergensen, L., Rask, T.S., Olsen, R.W., Andersen, M.A., Turner, L., Theander, T.G., Hviid, L., Higgins, M.K., Craig, A., Brown, A. and Jensen, A.T. (2013) A Novel Domain Cassette Identifies Plasmodium falciparum PfEMP1 Proteins Binding ICAM-1 and Is a Target of Cross-Reactive, Adhesion-Inhibitory Antibodies. J Immunol. 190 240-9

Lennartz, F., Bengtsson, A., Olsen, R.W., Joergensen, L., Brown, A., Remy, L., Man, P., Forest, E., Barfod, L.K., Adams, Y., Higgins, M.K.^*and Jensen A.T.^*(2015) Mapping the binding site of a cross-reactive Plasmodium falciparum PfEMP1 mAb inhibitory of ICAM-1 binding. J. Immunol. 195 3273-3283 (* joint corresponding).