UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Manuel Llinás, Ernest C. Pollard Professor in Biotechnology, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of chemistry, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed by peers upon members of the AAAS, the world's largest general scientific society, for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Llinás was honored for distinguished contributions to the field of malaria parasite life cycle research and for combating malaria.
“Manuel is a top-notch scientist and colleague who plays a vital role in our department’s commitment to excellence,” said Santhosh Girirajan, T. Ming Chu Professor and department head of biochemistry and molecular biology. “I am extremely pleased and proud that his sustained research contributions to understanding the parasite that causes malaria are being recognized with this honor.”
Llinás studies the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum, with the ultimate goal of identifying ways to disrupt parasite development that can be incorporated into novel therapies against this devastating disease. He combines techniques from functional genomics, transcriptomics, molecular biology, computational biology, biochemistry and metabolomics to better understand the biology of the malaria parasite. He is particularly interested in gene regulation and metabolism of the parasite during the stages of development that occur within human red blood cells, when clinical symptoms of the disease occur during infection.
“I am incredibly proud to receive this honor,” Llinás said. “Research is a collaborative endeavor and mine has always been greatly enriched by the many students, postdocs, and colleagues I have worked with, and I share this recognition with them. It is especially meaningful to be recognized by my fellow scientists and humbling to be included as a Fellow among such distinguished scholars.”
Llinás established and is a co-director of the Huck Center for Malaria Research at Penn State, which provides a forum for the numerous researchers at University Park, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Commonwealth Campuses working on malaria as well as the mosquito host. Over the past 20 years, he has mentored a large number of trainees. He is also the founder and organizer of the weekly Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology faculty lunch seminar series that fosters a sense of scientific community and encourages faculty members to present their research in a friendly environment to their peers.
Llinás was named the Ernest C. Pollard Professor in Biotechnology in recognition of his research contributions, teaching and service to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Eberly College of Science in 2023. Prior to that, he was named a distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of chemistry in 2022. He received a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement from Penn State in 2021, a National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award in 2007 and a Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award from the American Society of Microbiology in 2006. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Llinás has authored more than 125 scientific papers and has endeavored to publish his work largely in open-access journals.
Prior to joining Penn State in 2013, Llinás was an associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. He earned a doctoral degree in molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1999 and later was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at San Francisco. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University in 1992.
AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. The nonprofit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement and more. For additional information visit the AAAS website.