Biography
Peter Bull did a PhD at University College London and a first post-doc with Diane Cox at The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Toronto, on the genetics of Wilson Disease. He then moved to the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme (KWTRP) in Kilifi, Kenya studying antigenic variation in Plasmodium falciparum malaria with Kevin Marsh. After a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford with Chris Newbold, he returned to KWTRP to work on P. falciparum virulence gene expression in clinical malaria. He joined the Department of Pathology in 2015.
Research
Interests:
1) Naturally acquired immunity to malaria:
a) What causes severe malaria?
b) How are asymptomatic infections established?
2) Plasmodium falciparum variant surface antigens:
a) How populations of parasites respond to antibody selection pressure in vivo and in vitro
b) Understanding in vivo selection pressures on Plasmodium falciparum through controlled human infection
c) Identifying cross reactive antibodies
3) Plasmodium falciparum transcriptional changes in response to immune selection.
Collaborations:
Abdirahman Abdi, Faith Osier and Philip Bejon, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme, Kilifi, Kenya