Wed 11 Jun 16:00: Covert cnidarians: cryptic lives of the endoparasitic Myxozoa Host: Juliana Naldoni
Myxozoans are a diverse clade of endoparasites with complex life cycles and are the causative agents of some devastating fish diseases. Their phylogenetic placement was long obscure due to extreme morphological simplification and rapid evolution, but they are now established as a radiation of endoparasitic cnidarians that exploit freshwater, marine and terrestrial hosts. I will review diversity, lifestyles, and morphological simplification that characterise these generally unfamiliar animals and then present insights on how myxozoans exploit their invertebrate hosts and disperse to colonise new freshwater environments. By so revealing the cryptic lives of myxozoans we can appreciate how particular cnidarian traits may have facilitated and promoted this remarkable endoparasitic radiation.
Host: Juliana Naldoni
- Speaker: Prof Beth Okamura, Natural History Museum
- Wednesday 11 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Lecture Theater, Department of Pathology, Tennis Court Road.
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Ross Waller.
Wed 11 Jun 16:00: TBA Host: Juliana Naldoni
Abstract not available
Host: Juliana Naldoni
- Speaker: Prof Beth Okamura, Natural History Museum
- Wednesday 11 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Lecture Theater, Department of Pathology, Tennis Court Road.
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: jn472.
Wed 14 May 16:00: What can human population genetics teach us about malaria? Host: Katerina Artavanis-Tsakonas
Infectious diseases exert huge selective pressures on their hosts, generating an array of population genetic patterns. I am interested in what such patterns, in the genes of humans and other primates, can teach us about malaria. I will present evolutionary-epidemiological models of malaria infection blocking mutations, such as the mutation responsible for the Duffy negative blood group. I will discuss what the global distribution of these mutations may indicate about malaria parasites.
Host: Katerina Artavanis-Tsakonas
- Speaker: Dr Bridget Penman, University of Oxford
- Wednesday 14 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Lecture Theater, Department of Pathology, Tennis Court Road.
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Heledd Eavis.
Wed 14 May 16:00: What can human population genetics teach us about malaria? Host: Katerina Artavanis-Tsakonas
Infectious diseases exert huge selective pressures on their hosts, generating an array of population genetic patterns. I am interested in what such patterns, in the genes of humans and other primates, can teach us about malaria. I will present evolutionary-epidemiological models of malaria infection blocking mutations, such as the mutation responsible for the Duffy negative blood group. I will discuss what the global distribution of these mutations may indicate about malaria parasites.
Host: Katerina Artavanis-Tsakonas
- Speaker: Dr Bridget Penman, University of Oxford
- Wednesday 14 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Seminar Room, Tennis Court Road, Dept of Pathology..
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Katerina Artavanis-Tsakonas.
Wed 30 Apr 16:00: Adding Biology to Barcodes: Tackling the Hidden Diversity of the Marine Alveolates Host: Ross Waller
Metabarcoding datasets targeting protists in marine environments are often dominated by a group of dinoflagellates referred to as the Marine Alveolates (MALVs). Despite a global distribution, considerable sequence diversity, and significant prevalence and abundance in various hosts and environments, MAL Vs include just a handful of characterised lineages. They largely represent a vast collection of uncharacterised 18S barcodes. Known lineages, however, are important parasites that can impact fish and crustacean farming or even harmful algal bloom proliferation. Dinoflagellate genomes are notoriously large and complex. With only two comprehensive MALV genomes available, inferring robust evolutionary histories based solely on 18S phylogenies remains challenging. To overcome this issue, we are manually isolating and sequencing individual MALV cells to generate transcriptomes for phylogenomics, increasing the number of characterised MALV lineages and improving our understanding of dinoflagellate evolution in the process. Using this approach, we demonstrated that MAL Vs originated from two distinct, free-living ancestors, indicating multiple transitions to parasitism and challenging prevailing assumptions about MAL Vs as a whole. More recently, we have isolated several new genera, one of which appears to represent an entirely new MALV group. Going forward, we aim to use metabarcoding datasets to guide the targeted isolation of uncharacterised MALV lineages, filling in critical gaps in our understanding of these important regulators of both animal and environmental health.
Host: Ross Waller
- Speaker: Dr Corey Holt, University of Bath
- Wednesday 30 April 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Seminar Room, Tennis Court Road, Dept of Pathology..
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Ross Waller.