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Professor Katherine Andrews

Fellow

  • Bio/Profile
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  • Our research is focused on contributing to improving the lives of people who suffer from malaria. 

    We do this through the discovery and pre-clinical investigation of new drug leads for malaria prevention and treatment and the identification of novel drug targets. 

    We are also investigating the mode of action of a clinically used malaria drug called proguanil, which has been used for decades for malaria prevention and treatment as part of a drug combination. We found that proguanil has a novel activity that occurs via a unique slow action mechanism. This finding may have implications for how proguanil is used clinically. We are currently investigating this novel mode of action. 
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-019-0397-3?communications%20biology


    Our team has well established links with international experts from academia and industry, including including Australia’s CSIRO, the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and Monash University.

    I am committed to mentoring the next generation of STEM professionals. My 2022 Nature Careers article describes how I gather evidence of the impacts of my research and engagement activities to help build impact stories targeted to different audiences, including funders, promotion and award committees, donors and community members. With AAMRI, I created a free IMPACT CV TEMPLATE to help other researchers and professionals demonstrate the impact of their work. 
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00300-6

    I am passionate about STEM engagement, in particular acting as a female STEM role model and promoting other women in STEM. In 2017, I founded the That's RAD! Science project with the aim of inspiring in young children a love of STEM. I have authored/produced five children’s picture books on parasitology, nanotechnology, forensic science, crystallography and engineering. We have given out >14,000 That's RAD! Science books to date, reaching an estimated >30,000 children around Queensland and Australia.