Adam is part of the Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health (HPGH) program at the University of Edinburgh and joined the Spence Lab in 2022. This marked his first step into the fascinating (and daunting) worlds of malaria research and immunology.
Having begun his biological training in neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Adam’s scientific journey has stepped through a diverse range of fields. The first post-graduate stop was in industry, where he worked as a protein biochemist involved with the design, purification, and testing of recombinant proteins for putative therapies. Give him a plasmid, some bacteria, and a good backing track, and he can make you any protein you like (for a price).
A brief foray into diabetes research followed before enrolling in a masters course at Imperial College London, studying virology. The major research project for the masters commenced in early 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of a little-known virus named SARS-CoV-2. A rapid pivot to focus his project on this new outbreak eventually led to 18 months at the University of Oxford, predominantly working in a high level containment laboratory, collaborating with the makers of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in testing for efficacy and durability of protection.
It was from Oxford that Adam made his way to Edinburgh and the HPGH program, where he now studies the pathogenicity of malaria. In particular, his project aims to shine a light on the immune system’s involvement in the generation of severe disease. To do this, he works both with in vitro models of disease, and samples from patients infected - both naturally and in controlled challenge trials (in which the Spence Lab specialises) - with the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum.