Leonie Wilson recounts her experience as a PhD student at this years British Society for Parasitology Spring Meeting: “a vibrant and energetic atmosphere for all attendees, most strongly felt by the students who were eager and enthusiastic to learn more from their peers within the wonderful scientific field of Parasitology”
Luke Alphey, Group Leader of Vector-borne Viral Diseases at the Pirbright Institute in the UK, former Research Director of Oxitec Ltd., answers our questions on the potential of genetic control methods to halt the Zika virus epidemic as well as other pathogens transmitted by Aedes aegypti, and potentially other mosquitoes.
Media attention was caught recently by the publication of another study linking psychiatric disorders to infection with a very common single celled parasite that hides in the human brain
In the past, whenever humans have come across threats from large carnivores, we have killed them or tamed them. Nowadays, our biggest threat to survival is not large animals, but rather disease-causing microorganisms, and we strive to eradicate them with antimicrobials, vaccines and other control measures. But what if, like our ancestors did with wild oxen, wolves, horses and cats, we strove not always to eradicate them, but could ‘domesticate’ some of them for our own benefit?
What role do vector traits play in shaping disease transmission dynamics? Last week the VectorBiTE Research Coordination Network held its first meeting in Florida to start tackling this question. The meeting is summarized here.