Advisory Board and Editors Parasitology
Mark John Costello
B.Sc. (NUI Galway); Ph.D. 1987 (NUI Cork). Involved in World Register of Marine Species, International Association for Biological Oceanography, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Ocean Biodiversity Information System, Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network, Species 2000, IUCN. Worked in Ireland, Plymouth England, Aberdeen and Edinburgh Scotland, St Andrews Canada, and Auckland New Zealand.
Anissa Daliry
Dr. Anissa Daliry is a biologist at the Federal College of Pernambuco (UFPE) and holds a master's degree and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology from FIOCRUZ and a postdoctoral degree from Biophysics/UFRJ. Dr. Anissa is a permanent professor of Cell and Molecular Biology program, IOC/FIOCRUZ (level 7/ CAPES) and young scientist of our state/FAPERJ (2021-2024). Her main research focus is to study molecular, physiological pathways and mechanisms involved in the development of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Chagas disease. She performs pre-clinical and clinical studies. She coordinates the postgraduate course "Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases: from bench to the bedside." She is a reviewer for 13 indexed international journals. Since 2020, she has collaborated in the Longitudinal Study of Brazilian Health, ELSA-BRASIL. She is also a member of the Liver Center and the Brazilian Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (SBFte). She develops projects in technological innovation with the development of a medical device for the quantification of hepatic steatosis. Dr. Anissa is a member of the research directory group entitled: Longitudinal Study of Adult Health - RJ/Fiocruz Research Center, coordinated by Dr. Rosane Griep/IOC and leader of the CNPq research group entitled: Study group on pathophysiology and therapy of chronic non-communicable and infectious diseases.
Kenneth De Baets
I am a paleobiologist. My main research focuses on reproductive strategies and macroevolution, particularly on the relative contributions of biotic interactions (e.g., parasitism) and abiotic factors (e.g., climate) in driving these large-scale patterns. Other interests are quantitative methods to study biostratigraphy, intraspecific variability and paleobiology in general. My main tools for these purposes are invertebrates, mainly ammonoids (extinct cephalopods) and parasitic flatworms.
Nicholas J Dickens
Associate Research Professor in Bioinformatics at Florida Atlantic University. Research focus genomics of marine organisms, environmental microbiomes and machine learning to understand genome sequence. Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow Bioinformatics team for 7 years and lead the team for 4 of those. Also lead an experimental sequencing team in the Centre and has a bioinformatics research group. Originally, studied Biology at Imperial College London and moved into bioinformatics at NV Organon Pharmaceuticals in the Netherlands. Following this he had a research post at the MRC Functional Genetics Unit, University of Oxford where he stayed to do his genome informatics PhD. Has held research post-doctoral posts in London working in type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease at Imperial College, and cancer biology at the Institute of Cancer Research.
Tushar K. Dutta
I am a Senior Scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, involved in pursuing basic and applied research in the field of Nematology and Entomology.
As an alternative to Bt Cry toxins for insect pest management, a number of novel bacterial protein toxins (Txp40, TcaB) derived from an insect-parasitic bacterium Photorhabdus akhurstii (symbiont of nematode Heterorhabditis indica) were characterized. The mode of action and pathogenesis process of these toxins were investigated in different lepidopteran insects including Galleria mellonella, Helicoverpa armigera, Spodoptera litura and S. exigua. The potential receptor proteins and their binding sites for these toxins were unravelled from the insect midgut epithelial cells.
My other research interests include molecular basis of plant-nematode interaction. Using RNAi, functional analysis of several plant parasitism processes was deciphered including the role of Mi-cpl-1 in metabolic process, FLP and NLP neuropeptides in neuromusculation process, ODR and TAX proteins in chemotaxis process, cell wall degrading enzymes and various MSP effectors in infection process of plant nematodes. I have contributed in understanding the genetic basis of nematode resistance in rice via genome-wide association mapping coupled with omics-driven strategies. I am currently pursuing genome editing research for developing nematode resistance by adopting CRISPR-Cas9 strategy in Arabidopsis, rice and tomato.
Gilda Eslami
The Gilda Eslami, Professor of Medical Parasitology, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. The Head of Department of Mycology and Parasitology. The Editor in Chief of the Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control. The deputy of Research center of Food Hygiene and safety. The head of the laboratory of the Research Center of Food Hygiene and safety. The Head of olympiad of University in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.
Alda Maria Ferreira
I have a master's degree in microbiology and PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology. I am an Associate Professor of Immunology at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. I have already supervised six master's and one doctoral students in the areas of biochemistry and infectious diseases.
My main area of interest is cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, infectious diseases and biological assays. So far I have published several papers involving studies in these areas.
I am the leader of a research group certified by the CNpQ (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) on biological assays with >Trypanosoma cruzi<, which is the etiologic agent of Chagas disease.
Marcelo U. Ferreira
Prof. Marcelo Ferreira is a medical parasitologist with over 20-year experience in field-oriented and laboratory research. He graduated in Medicine from the University of São Paulo, Brazil (1988), where he was trained in Internal Medicine (1999-2004) and obtained his MSc (1993) and PhD (1997) degrees. Further research training was obtained in Japan (Nagoya University, 1995-97) and the United States (Harvard University, 2005-06). He teaches medical parasitology at the University of São Paulo since 1990 and currently serves as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee on Malaria of the Pan-American Health Organization.
Alex T Ford
Alex completed an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences (1996) at the University of Plymouth (England, UK) before embarking on a masters in Environmental Biology at Swansea University (Wales, 1997). After spending several years working as a marine benthic ecologist and taxonomist he undertook a PhD in Invertebrate Physiology and Ecotoxicology at Napier University Edinburgh (Scotland, 2001-2004). Between 2004 and 2008 he continued to be based in Scotland working as a Lecturer in Marine Biology and Ecotoxicology before moving south to the University of Portsmouth (England) where he is now a Professor of Biology. His expertise lies mainly in invertebrate biology, ecology and ecotoxicology.
He is currently course leader for an MSc entitled Applied Aquatic Biology and unit leader for courses on: Ecotoxicology and Pollution; Science and the Media; Marine Ecophysiology and Marine & Terrestrial Ecology.
Bernardo Franco
Dr. Franco has 20 years experience in academic research in microbiology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. Skills acquired during academic research include mainly nucleic acid manipulation, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, PCR, RT-PCR and qPCR, protein purification and characterization, light and confocal microscopy, flow cytometry and cell sorting, microbiological techniques (microorganism and cell culture, and collection management), good laboratory practices among others. He has eight years teaching experience in undergraduate and graduate programs (Signal transduction in bacteria and Molecular biology techniques, respectively).
Joseph J Gillespie
Dr. Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist with broad interests in organismal and molecular evolution. The major focus of his current research is deciphering the mechanisms by which obligate intracellular species of Rickettsiales (Alphaproteobacteria) invade, survive and replicate within eukaryotic cells.
In research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Gillespie utilizes phylogenetics, comparative genomics and bioinformatics to guide experimental research on various pathogenic species of Rickettsia and their associated arthropod vectors. His early research resulted in the reclassification of Rickettsia species and the identification of many lineage-specific pathogenicity factors. Through years of intense scrutinization of dozens of diverse rickettsial genomes, Dr. Gillespie and colleagues have described a large, dynamic mobilome for Rickettsia species, resulting in the identification of integrative conjugative elements as the vehicles for seeding Rickettsia genomes with many of the factors underlying obligate intracellular biology and pathogenesis. Via an iterative process of genome sequencing, phylogenomics, bioinformatics, and classical molecular biology and microbiology, Dr. Gillespie continues to lead and assist research projects on the characterization of rickettsial gene and protein function, as well as the description of cell envelope glycoconjugates.
Stephanie S Godfrey
Lecturer in the Department of Zoology at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Research interests include animal behaviour (and specifically animal social networks), host-parasite ecology, and conservation biology.