Working with the world’s top malaria researchers at Harvard was not where Sarah Higgins ’04 thought she would end up when she enrolled in Trent University’s inaugural Forensic Science program.

Dr. Higgins wanted to be a police officer. Sifting through evidence was exciting – and “the show [CSI] was just coming out,” Dr. Higgins recalls. She didn’t become a cop, but she says the program made her realize just how important science is to people’s lives. 

“The Forensic crime scene analysis training we received at Trent taught us to look at the whole picture before narrowing the lens,” she says. Through her studies, she understood she would have a greater impact on the world as a scientist. Enter Dr. Barry Saville, an associate professor in Trent’s Forensics department, and his research on corn fungus. Professor Saville used corn fungus as a model system to study biological threat agents. It was this experience, in Dr. Higgins final year that opened her eyes to what she was truly passionate about – laboratory research – and has provided the basis for her subsequent life-changing work.

Dr. Higgins continued to use models of infection to study potential bioterror while doing her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto.  Today, Dr. Higgins is one of the top malaria researchers at Harvard’s Center for Vascular Biology and the Beth Israel Medical Centre.

Her recently published paper, Dysregulation of angiopoietin-1 plays a mechanistic role in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria, has resulted in her first ever patent. This biologic innovation will now receive more funding and more clinical trails.

This new malaria research shifts the current paradigm by looking at ways to prevent brain injury and risk of death, rather than a strict focus on “drugs to kill bugs.” The groundbreaking paper shows that boosting a natural protein to protect blood vessels weakened by malaria improved survival, beyond use of antimalarial drugs alone.

“Our findings could have broad implications for other life threatening infections, such as sepsis, toxic shock and hemorrhagic fevers. It’s a new way to look at treating disease by boosting the body’s own capacity to protect itself,” she explains. This is especially important in the face of growing antimicrobial resistance.

“Trent helped me discover my passion, challenged my intellectual capabilities and taught me to think critically about questions that matter,” she says. “It was the intensive Forensic curriculum that gave me the big picture and vision that has helped set me apart in the field.”