COLLABORATORS
Much of our research involves collaboration with other laboratories. Listed below are some of our long standing and/or current collaborators (apologies to those not listed here):
Matt heads up the helminth genome sequencing initiative at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, outside Cambridge. His group is working on more than a dozen different cestode, trematode and nematode genomes, and Matt also works on the genomes of malarial parasites. Matt will use the high throughput facilities at the Sanger Institute to sequence the genome of Hymenolepis microstoma. See the Sanger Institute's Parasitic Helminth Genomes website.
Ian is a world expert on trypanorhynch tapeworms, as well as on the entire parasite fauna of Australian marsupials, and on many other subjects as well! Ian has had an extensive career involving taxonomic studies of parasites, including those affecting the health and economy of Australia.
Klaus runs a leading laboratory that focuses on molecular mechanisms in tapeworms. More specifically, his group studies the molecular communication between the host and parasite using an Echinococcus model. His lab has developed axenic conditions for in vitro culture and have produced the first transiently transgenic cestode strains. Klaus and I are currently piloting a study to examine differential gene expression in the neck region of tapeworms. We are also both external advisors to Honza Brabec (main advisor, Tom Scholz, see below) who is working on the characterization of spliced-leader genes in tapeworms.
Janine is on a mission to survey the parasite fauna of every species of shark and ray in the ocean. She was my PhD advisor and we have collaborated on many studies, most recently involving the trypanorhynch cestodes of elasmobranchs. See also her taxonomic database of cestodes and other resources on www.tapeworms.org
To his immediate colleagues at UQ, Tom is known as 'the guy who gets to do his research on the Great Barrier Reef'. But to the rest of us, Tom is known as a world authority on the systematics and evolution of digenean parasites, and it's on these animals that we have collaborated on. Tom runs an active group studying these and other parasites in coral reef systems and it's thanks to him that I've had opportunities to collect on the GBR myself. Thank you Tom!
Dr Peter Foster The Natural History Museum, UK | HOMEPAGE
Peter is a bioinformatician and phylogeneticist with interests in the modeling of sequence substitution parameters and author of the flexible Bayesian-based phylogenetic software P4. Peter is collaborating with us to help analyze our 454 data.
Karl is a leading immunologist-parasitologist who studies the -omes' of the human blood fluke, Schistoma masoni. We're interested in examining gene regulation through methylation in the flatworms. Like myself, Karl is an American ex-Pat married to a Brit!
Peter's group study the interplay of genes, embryos and evolution. Peter is one of the founding members of the field of evo-devo and has a self-confessed obsession for Hox genes. Together with other members of the Oxford Evolutionary Biology Group, Peter has advised on the developmental gene work in cestodes and is a Project Partner on the BBSRC grant that supports this work.
Gabi is a parasitologist with interests in pharmacology and immunology. She is a Project Partner on our developmental genes of cestodes grant and will lend her experience with the in vitro culture of helminths and methods of delivering macromolecules via liposomes. Gabi was a previous Synthesys visitor who came to work on resolving the long-standing problem of species boundaries in the European canid cestode Mesocestoides. She also helped us to do some confocal microscopy on our model cestode. We're looking forward to her next visit!
Dr Rony Huys The Natural History Museum, UK | HOMEPAGE
Rony is a world expert on copepods and fellow member of the Dept of Zoology. Rony and I have collaborated on a number of molecular phylogenetic projects regarding copepods and arthropods more generally.
Beth is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist who studies bryozoans and their cnidarian parasites. Beth recently joined us in the Department of Zoology from Reading University, where she worked with Peter Holland among others. Together with Post-Doctoral Fellow Alex Gruhl, we are investigating developmental genes in the vermiform cnidarian Buddenbrockia. Alex is also collaborating on work to describe the anatomy of Hymenolepis microstoma using confocal microscopy.
Robin has had a long and leading career in parasitology, focusing primarily on parasites of aquatic animals and the diseases relevant to aquaculture. He is also one of the foremost flatworm systematists of his generation--and plays a mean game of tennis!
Andreas is one of Germany's leading zoologists, with broad interests in the evolution of animal organ systems (see here), and particularly of the more wonderful and obscure phlyla that we know so little about. Andreas' lab is collaborating with us to characterize the neuroanatomy of our model tapeworm, Hymenolepis microstoma.
Tomas is a fish parasitologist and world authority on their flatworm parasites. He currently acts as the Head of his Institute and looks after a team of students and technicians. He's an extraordinarily busy academic with whom I have a shared interest in the early evolution of the cestodes--among other things. We've collaborated on two studies involving carophyllidean tapeworms (see publications) and are currently collaborating by way of one of his PhD students, Jan Brabec.
Vasyl is one of the leading experts in the biodiversity of parasitic flatworms. We have worked together on a number of molecular systematics projects involving tapeworms and digeneans, some of which are ongoing. Vasyl has been a regular visitor to the NHM PWG in the past and we had the opportunity to work together in both the lab and office during my postdoctoral years at the NHM.