Science, Technology and Engineering

Anders Laboratory

Department of Biochemistry

Biosketch - Emeritus Professor Robin Anders

Robin completed his Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree in 1961 at the University of Melbourne and after a short time working as an Agricultural Officer in Papua New Guinea returned to Melbourne to undertake his PhD studies in Biochemistry under the supervision of Dr Richard Jago. In 1965 Robin returned to Papua New Guinea and for almost 10 years taught at the medical school in Port Moresby, which in 1970 became the Faculty of Medicine in the new University of Papua New Guinea. After leaving Papua New Guinea in 1974 Robin spent two years in Oslo, Norway, working on amyloid proteins with Professor Jacob Natvig, before returning to Melbourne to work at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute where he stayed until moving to La Trobe University in 2000. In 1978 Robin joined the Immunoparasitology Laboratory headed by Graham Mitchell and since that time his research has largely focused on malaria.
Over the last twenty years Robin has been involved in the characterization of a large number of parasite proteins that induce anti-malarial antibodies. He has been involved in assessing the vaccine potential of some of these proteins in preclinical studies and early clinical trials. He currently heads a project aiming to develop a vaccine incorporating the merozoite surface protein MSP2.
For 15 years Robin was chairman of the organizing committee for the Lorne Protein Structure and Function Conference. He has served as an advisor to the World Health Organisation on malaria vaccine development and has been a member of the Editorial Boards of Microbial Pathogenesis and Cellular Microbiology.