Advisory Board and Editors Parasitology
Silvia N. J. Moreno
Professor of Cellular Biology and member of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases of the University of Georgia. Former recipient of a Burroughs Welcome New Investigator Award. Undergraduate Coordinator of the Department of Cellular Biology.
Barbara Nowak
Barbara is Professor at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), where she leads Aquatic Animal Health research group. Barbara has her PhD from Sydney University and has been working at UTAS since 1991. Her research interests focus on various aspects of fish health, such as fish parasitology, fish immunology and fish pathology. Barbara has published over 200 papers and supervised more than 30 PhD students. She has received awards for her research and supervision of PhD students.
Audrey R Odom John
Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
The primary research goals of our lab are to understand the biological functions of specific metabolic pathways in the malaria parasite--that is, to understand what the parasite needs to make, and why it needs to make it.
Marylène Poirié
Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Genetics, Nice Sophia Antipolis University (France). Co-Head of the Sophia Agrobiotech Institute (INRA-CNRS-University of Nice Sophia Antipolis). Recipient of the Integrative Biology prize of the French Academy of Sciences (Balachovski prize). Member of the excutive committee of the Signalife Labex. Past member of the excutive committee of the European Doctoral School "Insect Science and Biotechnology".
Marta I Sánchez
I’m a Ramón y Cajal Researcher at the Doñana Biological Station (Spanish Council of Scientific Research, CSIC), Seville, Spain. Previously I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Functional Ecology and Evolution (CEFE-CNRS) and the Institute for Research and Development (IRD), Montpellier, France. My research focuses on understanding the processes regulating aquatic ecosystem functioning. In particular I’m interested in the complex influence of waterbirds on wetland ecosystems via predation and dispersal of propagules, the role of trophically transmitted parasites (mainly those manipulating host behaviour) and biological invasions.
Emmanuel Serrano
Dr. Emmanuel Serrano is Associate Professor and wildlife ecologist at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. He leads th
He leads the Wildlife Ecology & Health (WE&H) group and is a member of the SEFaS at the UAB.
Hhis research integrates different disciplines to address wildlife disease and management issues.
Arif J Siddiqui
Dr. Arif Jamal Siddiqui is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America.
He has more than 8 years of experience in research, teaching and administration. In his professional work, he has received research grants as a Principal Investigator from various renowned organizations. He has successfully published more than 100 publications in internationally recognized peer-reviewed prestigious journals, published several book chapters for internationally renowned publishers and presented many articles and posters in various conferences/workshops worldwide. He has published numerous papers in the fields of parasitology, immunology, herbal medicine, vaccine development, drug discovery and natural products with a specialization in anti-parasitic, antiviral, anticancer and antibacterial agents. Furthermore, he is a member of The Indian Science Congress Association, India and the Annals of Parasitology, Poland. He has reviewed more than 250 manuscripts and he also currently holds various editorial positions (Academic, Associate, Guest and Review Editor) in various reputable journals and has edited more than 150 manuscripts.
Joana C Silva
My group applies evolutionary genetics and genomic sciences to basic research on species evolution and translational research of infectious diseases. I have been studying infectious disease genomics since the early 2000's. At The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) I was part of the team that launched the field of parasite genomics, with work on several Plasmodium and trypanosomatid species, Theileria parva and Trichomonas vaginalis. At the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, we have ongoing projects on a variety of parasites in the phylum Apicomplexa. These include the causative agents of malaria in humans (genus Plasmodium), tropical theileriosis and East Coast fever in cattle (genus Theileria), human babesiosis (genus Babesia), and human cryptosporidiosis (genus Cryptosporidium). Ongoing projects include the study of species biology and the nature of host-parasite interactions, based on the generation and analyses of genomes, and studies of vaccine efficacy and vaccine design, drug resistance and the evolution of parasite populations, informed by population genomics data. Our research is funded by NSF, NIH, USDA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Johannie M. Spaan
Dr. Johannie Spaan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest (Western University of Health Sciences). Her research interests focus on stress physiology, disease ecology, eco-immunology and parasitology.
More specifically, Dr. Spaan's research within the Steinauer lab is focused on a neglected tropical disease, Schistosomiasis, a helminth infection that affects over 200 million people. Research carried out within the lab focuses on uncovering potential mechanisms that can be manipulated to break the life cycle of this pathogen in order to reduce or eliminate schistosome transmission to humans.
In addition to this, Dr. Spaan is also involved in a project investigating the effect of schistosome infections in a mouse model system and the links among parasite infection, behavioral and cognitive changes, microbiome alteration, and systemic inflammation.
Xiaotian Tang
Dr. Xiaotian Tang is now an assistant professor (ZJU100 Young Professor) at Zhejiang University. He was a postdoctoral associate at Yale School of Medicine. His research interests include vector-borne diseases of animals and plants, and arthropod-pathogen-host interactions. He is also interested in evolutionary biology of arthropods.
He has over 40 publications in high-quality peer-reviewed journals, including Cell, PLOS Biology, eLife, Cell Reports, and Science Translational Medicine. He has served as academic or review editor for 4 journals and reviewer for over 20 journals.
Balu Alagar Venmathi Maran
Dr. Balu Alagar Venmathi Maran, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Integrated Science and Technology, Nagasaki University, Japan
Dr. Balu Alagar Venmathi Maran is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Integrated Science and Technology, Nagasaki University, Japan. He previously served as an Associate Professor at the Borneo Marine Research Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Malaysia, from 2017 to 2023. Before that, he was a Research Professor at Chonnam National University, Pukyong National University, and Kyungpook National University, South Korea (2015–2017) and a Scientist at the Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Busan, South Korea (2011–2015).
Dr. Venmathi Maran earned his Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Hiroshima University, Japan, and has 25 years of research experience in marine science and aquaculture. His expertise includes the taxonomy of marine fish parasites and the application of natural products for parasite control in aquaculture. Additionally, his research focuses on jellyfish biodiversity, harmful jellyfish toxins, and the potential of jellyfish collagen in cosmetics.
Currently, he is engaged in a marine science and technology project utilizing artificial intelligence in biological imaging. His significant contributions to research and innovation have been recognized with multiple awards and gold medals from UMS.
Dr. Venmathi Maran has authored over 100 research articles, 10 book chapters, and has edited three books published by Springer and UMS Press. As the principal investigator of several research projects, including an international project on marine biodiversity, he plays a key role in advancing marine research.
Additionally, he serves as an Academic Editor for PeerJ (Q1), International Journal of Microbiology (Wiley), and Diversity (MDPI) as a Guest Editor, along with several other scientific journals.