Jacquin C. Niles, MD, PhD
Novel Tools Combat Infectious Diseases
The Niles Lab emphasizes developing and using novel molecular tools to address questions in infectious diseases. Their specific focus is on malaria and the causative pathogen, Plasmodium falciparum.
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Research:
The goal of the Niles lab is to establish, through technological innovations, new avenues to discovering fundamental malaria parasite biology that can be translated into much-needed diagnostic, preventative and therapeutic solutions.
The lab’s long-term goal is to create a diverse and easy-to-use molecular toolkit for robustly controlling gene expression and protein function, thereby enabling the efficient elucidation of parasite gene function. The lab emphasizes constructing tools that are multi-purpose and broadly applicable across different organisms, including model systems and especially less genetically tractable pathogens. In some instances, the lab tailors existing technologies to make them compatible with unique aspects of our target organism biology. Alternatively, the lab uses basic principles gleaned from nature to design and systematically develop novel strategies for achieving gene regulation.
Biography:
Professor Niles obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at MIT before pursing an M.D./PhD through the HST program between Harvard and MIT, working in Professor Steve Tannenbaum’s lab. Niles then conducted his postdoctoral work in the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley in Professor Michael Marletta’s group. Niles returned to MIT in 2007 to join the Department of Biological Engineering where his research group consists of Biological Engineers, Chemists, and Microbiologists focused on developing novel biomolecular tools to better enable the study of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. In April 2019 Professor Niles was named director of the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences.