Brendan Crabb

Brendan Scott Crabb AC (born 13 September 1966) is an Australian immunologist, research scientist and Director and chief executive officer of the Burnet Institute, based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Educated in Papua New Guinea and Australia, Crabb received a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Melbourne in the Department of Microbiology. In 1992, he completed his PhD in virology at the School of Veterinary Science also at the University of Melbourne. His PhD project, which explored proteins of equine herpes, led to a diagnostic test which could distinguish horses infected by the lethal equine herpes virus-1 and the less damaging equine herpes virus-4.

Currently, his main research focus is on the identification of new targets for therapeutic intervention in malaria and the development of a malaria vaccine. More broadly, his interests mirror the mission of the Burnet Institute - to improve the health of poor and vulnerable communities through research, education and public health.

In 2009, Crabb and his research team identified the export protein translocon in malaria. This discovery was published in Nature and solved the mystery of how proteins with an export motif are trafficked out of the infected parasite and into the cytosol of the red blood cell host. This finding has broad impact in biology and also has considerable importance as a major new drug target in malaria.

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