About the Author


Björn Felix Caesar Kafsack was born and raised in Germany.
He attended the University of Washington in Seattle,WA until 2001 before joining the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD where he is a doctoral student in the W. Harry Feinstone department of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology.  Under Dr. Vern Carruthers he is studying the invasion of host-cells by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii.


Education

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
2002-Present    Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology & Immunology
2003-2006       M.H.S. in Bioinformatics
2002-2004       Certificate in Vaccine Science & Policy

University of Washington, Seattle, WA
1997-2001       B.S. with distinction in Microbiology,
1997-2001       B.S. with distinction in Biochemistry,
1997-2001       B.A. with distinction in Philosophy

Training

2004 Biology of Parasitism Course, Marine Biological Laboratory
2003 Research Ethics          
2002 Field Course in Disease Ecology and Behavior, Sevilleta NWR, NM
2002 Animal Care and Use Module
2002 Protection of Human Research Subjects Module

Positions & Employment

2002-Present    Graduate Student, Department of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
2005, 2006            Teaching Assistant, Public Health Biology
2003, 2005            Teaching Assistant, Biocomputing I: Perl for Bioinformatics

Funding

2005-Present    American Heart Association Pre-doctoral Fellowship Award
2004                Francis A. Coventry Fellowship
2003                Otis & Calista Causey Fellowship in Immunology
2000                Undergraduate Research Training Grant
1998                Undergraduate Research Training Grant

Honors & Awards

2005        Maryland Science Center Scientist of the Month (September)
2005        Fredrick B. Bang Award for Student Research in Pathobiology
2004        Biology of Parasitism, Marine Biological Laboratory Scholarship
2004        Delta Omega Scientific Poster Competition, 2nd Place
2000        Mary Gates Scholar
1998        Mary Gates Scholar

Publications

Zhou XW*, Kafsack BFC*, Cole RN, Beckett P, Shen RF, Carruthers VB, The Opportunistic Pathogen Toxoplasma Gondii Deploys A Diverse Legion Of Invasion And Survival Proteins J. Biol. Chem. 2005 Oct 7;280(40):34233-44 * authors contributed equally

Kafsack BFC, Beckers CJM, Carruthers VB, Synchronous invasion of host cells by Toxoplasma gondii. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 2004 Aug; 136(2):309-311

Harper JM, Zhou XW, Pszenny V, Kafsack BFC, Carruthers VB, The novel coccidian micronemal protein MIC11 undergoes proteolytic maturation by sequential cleavage to remove an internal propeptide Int J Parasitol 2004 Aug; 34(9):1047-58

Rasoloson D, Shi L, Chong CR, Kafsack BF, Sullivan DJ. Copper pathways in Plasmodium falciparum infected erythrocytes indicate an efflux role for the copper P-ATPase. Biochem J. 2004 Aug 1;381(Pt 3):803-11

Seamons A, Sutton J, Bai D, Baird E, Bonn N, Kafsack BFC, Shabanowitz J, Hunt DF, Beeson C, Goverman J.  Competition between two MHC binding registers in a single peptide processed from myelin basic protein influences tolerance and susceptibility to autoimmunity. J Exp Med. 2003 May 19;197(10):1391-7.