Dr Oliver Billker

Oliver uses experimental genetics in rodent models to study the basic biology of malaria parasites and their interactions with host and mosquito vectors.

Oliver graduated in Biology from the Free University Berlin in 1995.

In 1999 he earned his PhD at Imperial College London in the group of Bob Sinden, identifying a mosquito factor that initiates malaria parasite development in the vector.

Following a postdoctoral fellowship in bacterial pathogenesis and signal transduction at Berlin's Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Oliver returned to Imperial College London in 2002 as an MRC Career Development Fellow. Studying malaria parasites of rodents, his group began to identify parasite genes involved in signal transduction, sexual development and the mosquito transmission of malaria.

He joined the Sanger Malaria Programme in 2008. Oliver brings to the programme a model parasite that lends itself to large scale mutagenesis and that links to the Mouse Genetics Programme, with the aim of identifying host genes involved in host parasite interactions. He is now an MRC Senior Research Fellow.

Selected Publications

• The conserved plant sterility gene HAP2 functions after attachment of fusogenic membranes in Chlamydomonas and Plasmodium gametes.

  Liu Y, Tewari R, Ning J, Blagborough AM, Garbom S, Pei J, Grishin NV, Steele RE, Sinden RE, Snell WJ and Billker O

  Genes & development 2008;22;8;1051-68

  PUBMED: 18367645; DOI: 10.1101/gad.1656508; PMC: 2335326

• Heparan sulfate proteoglycans provide a signal to Plasmodium sporozoites to stop migrating and productively invade host cells.

  Coppi A, Tewari R, Bishop JR, Bennett BL, Lawrence R, Esko JD, Billker O and Sinnis P

  Cell host & microbe 2007;2;5;316-27

  PUBMED: 18005753; DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2007.10.002; PMC: 2117360

• Generation of gene targeting constructs for Plasmodium berghei by a PCR-based method amenable to high throughput applications.

  Ecker A, Moon R, Sinden RE and Billker O

  Molecular and biochemical parasitology 2006;145;2;265-8

  PUBMED: 16290088; DOI: 10.1016/j.molbiopara.2005.10.006

• Protein kinases as targets for antimalarial intervention: Kinomics, structure-based design, transmission-blockade, and targeting host cell enzymes.

  Doerig C, Billker O, Pratt D and Endicott J

  Biochimica et biophysica acta 2005;1754;1-2;132-50

  PUBMED: 16271522; DOI: 10.1016/j.bbapap.2005.08.027

• Calcium and a calcium-dependent protein kinase regulate gamete formation and mosquito transmission in a malaria parasite.

  Billker O, Dechamps S, Tewari R, Wenig G, Franke-Fayard B and Brinkmann V

  Cell 2004;117;4;503-14

  PUBMED: 15137943

• Identification of xanthurenic acid as the putative inducer of malaria development in the mosquito.

  Billker O, Lindo V, Panico M, Etienne AE, Paxton T, Dell A, Rogers M, Sinden RE and Morris HR

  Nature 1998;392;6673;289-92

  PUBMED: 9521324; DOI: 10.1038/32667