Matt Higgins

Matt is the EP Abraham Chair of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford where he leads a research team who investigate the molecular basis for critical host-parasite interactions and use this insight to design improved immunotherapeutics.

He is grateful for funding in the form of an Investigator Award from the Wellcome Trust and research grants from the Medical Research Council and the Gates Foundation.

He is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford (http://merton.ox.ac.uk).

Matt also directs the Wellcome-funded D. Phil. program in Cellular Structural Biology at the University of Oxford.

Matt was awarded the 2021 Wright Medal of the British Society for Parasitology

In May 2025, Matt was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

In July 2025, Matt was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).

Previous career

Matt studied Natural Sciences at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, where he specialised in Biochemistry and was awarded a first-class degree.

His graduate studies were conducted at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, with Dr Nigel Unwin, where he used electron microscopy to study ion channels and clathrin lattice formation.

He remained in Cambridge for his post-doctoral studies, where he used protein crystallography to characterise bacterial antibiotic efflux pumps and components of the vision system.

In 2006 he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to establish a research team to study the molecular basis for host-parasite interactions in malaria. He moved to Oxford in 2010 as a University Lecturer and was promoted to Professor of Molecular Parasitology in 2015 and was appointed Tutorial Fellow at Merton College.