Dr. Tolia became the Chief of the Host-Pathogen Interactions and Structural Vaccinology section in the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology in May 2018. He is a tenured Senior Investigator in the Division of Intramural Research, NIAID. He has pioneered the structural and biophysical studies of host-pathogen interactions, antibody neutralization and immunogen design for malaria, and has recently expanded his efforts to address pandemic viral diseases. A major goal is to define how processes required for pathogen survival are mediated and can be exploited to develop vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. His laboratory uses the tools of protein design, structural biology, immunology, vaccinology, microbiology, and biophysics to develop potent and durable interventions for infectious diseases
Dr. Tolia received his B.Sc from Imperial College, and his Ph.D. from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences as a Leslie Quick Jr. Fellow. He began his independent career as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Microbiology, and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University in November 2007. He was the recipient of an Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and his research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the W.M. Keck Foundation.