Rate My Professor Alex Maier

Professor Alex Maier is a Professor in the Division of Biomedical Sciences and Biochemistry in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University. His passion for molecular parasitology ignited during studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany and Southern Colorado in the USA. He conducted his doctorate at the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg under Professor Christine Clayton, investigating protein trafficking and membrane proteins in Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness. Awarded a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft postdoctoral fellowship in 2000, he joined the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, establishing and heading the Malaria Functional Genomics Facility from 2002 to 2008, which focused on malaria parasite invasion of red blood cells and the transport and display of parasite molecules on infected cell surfaces. In 2008, he served as ARC Australian Research Fellow and lab head in the Department of Biochemistry at La Trobe University, studying Plasmodium falciparum-induced modifications of red blood cells. He joined ANU in 2012, leading the Maier Group.

The Maier Group elucidates molecular mechanisms of malaria pathogenesis and transmission, exploring how parasites survive in hosts, sexual differentiation processes, and lipids' roles in Plasmodium falciparum life-cycle progression using biochemical, molecular, genetic, and cell biological techniques to identify intervention targets. Key publications include 'Exported proteins required for virulence and rigidity of Plasmodium falciparum-infected human erythrocytes' (2008), 'Malaria parasite proteins that remodel the host erythrocyte' (2009), 'A newly discovered protein export machine in malaria parasites' (2009), 'Changes in lipid composition during sexual development of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum' (2016), and 'Harnessing cholesterol uptake of malaria parasites for therapeutic applications' (2024). Professor Maier has received the 2023 Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence (science category), ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2021), Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Public Policy and Outreach (2016) for developing the Australian Society for Parasitology's Concepts in Parasitology course, Fellowship of the Australian Society for Parasitology (2018), Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (2018), Laureate of the Khwarizmi International Award (2011), and Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship.