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MBL Draws Parasitologists from Around the World
Cape Cod is well known for its beaches and seafood, but now it’s also becoming a hot spot for the study of human parasites.
In fact, the MBL and the tiny village of Woods Hole were abuzz this summer and fall with an international array of established and aspiring parasitologists, who came here to study the inner-workings of the bugs that cause malaria, African sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis, and leishmaniasis.
Parasitology is serious business at the MBL, and it should be. In 1999, the World Health Organization listed infectious and parasitic diseases as a leading cause of death worldwide.
Recently, the MBL has attracted an increasing number of parasitologists, many of whom discovered the facility through the laboratory’s Biology of Parasitism course, a highly regarded intensive graduate-level summer program. The course, which ran this year from June 8 to August 6, draws faculty and students from around the world, including those whose countries are most devastated by parasitic diseases.
The MBL also regularly hosts several international parasitology meetings. In September, for example, over 400 scientists gathered here for the Molecular Parasitology Meeting to examine all aspects of protozoan parasite molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, and genomics.
MBL researchers have also developed year-round programs to attract visiting scholars from around the globe. The scholars, many of whom are from developing countries, are drawn to the MBL’s Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, where they learn gene sequencing and other molecular techniques, use sophisticated lab equipment, and collaborate with leading scientists in the field.
The goal of the MBL’s heavy investment in parasitology is to understand these potentially harmful organisms on a genetic level, which could enable scientists to develop drugs or vaccines to combat them.
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