Tim Anderson has been studying parasites for three decades. Today his lab investigates the genetic basis and evolution of biomedically important traits in two groups of parasites together responsible for more than 800,000 deaths per year — Plasmodium, the malaria parasite, and the blood fluke Schistosoma. They are using genomic analysis of field-collected parasites and genetic crosses to identify drug resistance genes. The combined approach provides a way to understand drug resistance, host specificity, parasite virulence, and multiple other important biomedical traits. An Oxford graduate, Anderson earned his PhD at the University of Rochester and did postdoctoral work in Oxford and Milan. He has previously studied mice on Scottish islands, butterfly-ant symbioses in Australia, Wolbachia endosymbionts in filarial nematodes, and roundworm transmission in Guatemalan villages.