Dr William Stone
BSc MSc PhD
Assistant Professor
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
I completed my MSc in Medical Parasitology at LSHTM in 2011. While writing up my summer project for publication, I travelled to Kenya to conduct serological and molecular analyses for a large study which aimed to identify micro-geographical hotspots of malaria parasite transmission. I then moved to the Netherlands to start my PhD at Radboud University under PIs Teun Bousema and Robert Sauerwein. Between then and 2018 I also worked in California, Kenya, and London, focusing on the development of assays to detect and quantify transmission from humans to mosquitoes, measurement of the malaria infectious reservoir at the population level, and on transmission inhibiting drugs and naturally acquired antibody responses. Returning full time to LSHTM under PI Chris Drakeley, I collaborated with the Malaria Research & Training Center in Bamako, Mali testing the effects of low dose antimalarials as transmission blocking agents, for supplementing standard treatments. In 2019 I was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship to continue my work investigating naturally acquired transmission blocking immunity, which focuses on samples collected in studies in Uganda and during controlled human malaria infections. I am currently working on projects in Burkina Faso, Uganda, Mali, and Ethiopia.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I am a tutor on the 'Malaria: From Science to Policy and Practice' module, and I teach on the 'Immunology of Infectious Diseases' MSc course and the 'Immunology of Parasitic Infection' optional module.
Research
I work on the transmission of P. falciparum malaria parasites from humans to mosquitoes, encompassing diagnostic strategies, measurement of the infectious reservoir and the assessment of transmission-blocking drugs in randomised controlled trials. I am currently focused on investigating malaria transmission blocking immunity - which occurs naturally after exposure to the parasite, and forms the basis of transmission blocking vaccine development.