Brendan Crabb has made several discoveries of significance about human malaria. His team discovered the malaria translocon, a protein machine that allows the translocation of malaria proteins into its host cell, a highly vulnerable point in the parasite’s life cycle. He was the first to provide an order for the myriad of receptor-ligand interactions that mediate red blood cell invasion by malaria parasites. He is also a pioneer of genetic technologies in human malaria, describing the first gene knockout in this organism, and has made fundamental discoveries in malaria pathogenesis using these and other approaches.