College of the Pacific

Kirkwood Land

Kirkwood Land (B.S., University of California, Davis, 1992; M.A., University of California, Riverside, 1995; Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2001), Assistant Professor.

Dr. Land’s research focuses on three main areas:

1. understanding the biology of cysteine proteases in the pathogenesis of human and animal parasites
2. the development of assays to identify and develop new drugs for treatment of human and animal infections
3. the development of large scale biopharmaceutical production of identified drug targets 

Specific projects underway in the laboratory at this time are:

1. cloning and expression of cysteine protease genes in the yeast Pichia pastoris
2. screening of new cysteine protease inhibitors on Trichomonas vaginalis and Tritrichomonas foetus
3. the establishment of a large scale biopharmaceutical production facility

The latter project is being carried out in collaboration with New Hampshire Technical College. 

Dr. Land also has a collaborative project with Dr. Wrischnik on a study of the evolution of the genes of the homologous recombinational DNA repair pathway.

Dr. Land teaches:  Principles of Biology, Medical Microbiology, Parasitology, and Microbiology.

Kirkwood Land
Assistant Professor of Biology
Class Room Bldg, Room 201
Email:  kland@pacific.edu
209-946-7609

Area:  Biology of the human parasite Trichomonas vaginalis

 Curriculum Vitae