Anthony A. James, PhD is Donald Bren Professor and Distinguished Professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics (School of Medicine) and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry (School of Biological Sciences) at the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences USA. His research group uses genetics as the basis for synthetic approaches to prevent transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. Contributions include the development of mosquito transgenesis procedures, engineered genes that interfere with malaria parasite or dengue virus development in mosquitoes, a population-suppression strain based on flightless female mosquitoes and gene-drive systems to spread beneficial genes quickly through mosquito populations.
Dr. James received his Bachelor of Science and PhD degrees at UCI. He went to Boston in 1979 for postdoctoral work (Harvard Medical School and Brandeis University) and joined the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1985. He returned to his alma mater in 1989, where he is today. Active and past support include multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health (USA), the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the W.M. Keck Foundation. In addition to being elected to the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in 2006, he received numerous other awards including the Nan-Yao Su (2009) Award for Innovation and Creativity in Entomology from the Entomological Society of America, was a co-recipient of the Premio de Investgación Médica Dr. Jorge Rosenkranz (2008), a recipient of the Burroughs-Wellcome New Initiatives in Malaria Award (2000) and the Burroughs-Wellcome Scholar Award in Molecular Parasitology (1994). He was named a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London (1992), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1994), Fellow of the Society, Entomological Society of America (2011) and Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2012). In 2009, he was awarded the UCI Medal. He has published over 200 papers, reviews and policy documents and has provided guidance to 34 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He was a founding editor of the journal Insect Molecular Biology and has served on the editorial boards of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Experimental Parasitology and Entomological Research. He is a member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, American Committee on Vector Entomology, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Parasitology, Royal Entomological Society, Entomological Society of America, Genetics Society of America and Society of Vector Ecology.
