The Boyle Group's goal is to inform the development of effective malaria vaccines by defining functional mechanisms of antibodies that target the parasite, and the development of protective antibodies in humans.
Dr Michelle Boyle completed her PhD in 2012 at the Burnet Institute and Melbourne University with a focus on developing methods to study Plasmodium falciparum malaria invasion of red blood cells and progressing towards vaccine and drug development.
Following her PhD, Michelle was awarded an NHMRC Early Career (CJ Martin) Fellowship and completed a two-year post-doctoral position at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work identified a number of age and malaria exposure-dependent changes to T cells that contribute to naturally acquired immunity and she received the Australian National Association of Research Fellows Postdoctoral Investigator Award in 2015.
Dr Boyle was working on collaborative projects between the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, where she is an Honorary Fellow, and the Burnet Institute, to identify mechanisms contributing to the acquisition of immunity against multiple malaria species in the South East Asia region.
In 2018, she established her lab at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Queensland and commenced as an EMBL Australia Group Leader.
Opposing roles for TNF and IL10 production by CD4 T cells in children in an area of high malaria transmission.
Frontiers in Immunology, 8, 1329.
Isolation of viable Plasmodium falciparum merozoites to define erythrocyte invasion events and advance vaccine and drug development.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 107 (32), 14378-14383.
Human antibodies fix complement to inhibit Plasmodium falciparum invasion of erythrocytes and are associated with protection against clinical malaria.
Immunity, 42 (3) 580.
Decline of FoxP3+ Regulatory CD4 T cells in peripheral blood of children heavily exposed to malaria.
Plos Pathog. 11, (7).
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