Personal HistoryChristopher Plowe is Professor of Medicine, of Microbiology and Immunology, and of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is Chief of the Malaria Section of the University's Center for Vaccine Development. Dr. Plowe received his B.A. in Philosophy from Cornell University in 1982, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1986, and an M.P.H. in Tropical Medicine from Columbia University School of Public Health in 1991. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine and was Chief Medical Resident at St. Luke's Hospital of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, New York, and completed fellowships in malaria research at the National Institutes of Health and in Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development in 1995. He has received a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award and the Bailey K. Ashford Medal for distinguished work in tropical medicine from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 2007 he was selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in Patient-Oriented Research. Research InterestsIn the Malaria Section we work on malaria drug resistance, molecular epidemiology, molecular evolution, pathogenesis, HIV-malaria interactions and clinical trials of malaria drugs and vaccines. We do laboratory and field research on the molecular mechanisms and molecular epidemiology of resistance to antimalarial drugs, particularly the antifolate drugs and chloroquine. Plasmodium falciparum malaria resistant to these drugs is already widespread in much of South America and Asia, and chloroquine resistance is responsible for large increases in malaria morbidity and mortality in Africa. Our team has developed rapid molecular assays for parasite mutations that cause the parasite to be resistant to specific drugs for use as public health tools for monitoring resistance in malaria-endemic areas. In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Mali, we have developed a field research site in the Dogon Country of Mali. This field station is the site of studies of drug resistance, pathogenesis and immunology of severe malaria, and clinical trials of malaria vaccines. In Malawi we work on clinical trials of malaria drugs, molecular epidemiology of drug resistant malaria and the impact of antimicrobial use on antimalarial drug resistance in persons living with HIV. We recently reported that chloroquine sensitive malaria had returned to Malawi 12 years after chloroquine was withdrawn. At the Center for Vaccine Development in Baltimore, we study the impact of genetic diversity on malaria drug and vaccine efficacy using high-throughput genotyping and mathematical modeling. We work with scientists in Africa, Asia and South America to train junior scientists and build research capacity in malaria-endemic countries. Clinical SpecialityTropical Medicine and Travelers' Health Publications
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