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Dr Alan Thomas
Department of Parasitology

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Dr Alan W. Thomas is Chairman of the Department of Parasitology at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre, Rijswijk. He has worked in immunoparasitology since his Ph.D. and has gained experience in all htmlects of malaria research at the NIH, Walter Reed Army Institute for Research and at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. Since 1992 he has been at the BPRC where his principal interests are the development of malaria and tuberculosis vaccines. He has co-ordinated a number of EC-funded research programmes including the INCO-DC PVEN (Primate Vaccine Evaluation Network) programme.

Dr Thomas works closely with Dr Clemens Kocken, Head of Molecular Parasitology at BPRC. Dr Kocken has worked for 10 years on malaria vaccine development, and has wide experience in gene cloning and characterisation and in heterologous expression of recombinant proteins.

Drs Alan Thomas and Clemens Kocken will supervise all the preclinical testing carried out at BPRC in non-human primates. Candidate malaria constructs and adjuvants will be assessed both for immunogenicity and for protection. Dr Thomas is also responsible for co-ordinating the research on AMA-1.

A major research activity of the Department of Parasitology at the BPRC is the application of molecular, biochemical and immunological approaches to provide a rationale for new vaccine and therapeutic strategies for malaria. The BPRC houses over 1500 primates, and has extensive knowledge on primate immunology and physiology and experience with the specific requirements for housing and handling of primates.
All the tools for immunological and protection studies (including MHC typing for macaques) are in use at the BPRC. The Animal Science Department is GLP compliant and all laboratories are run at Basic Quality Level under a GLP quality assurance unit.