• Question: why do you like working with parisites

    Asked by BaggyMaggy to Claire, Franco, Koi, Linda, Mark on 13 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Seagilllina.
    • Photo: Franco Falcone

      Franco Falcone answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      First of all, they are medically very important as they cause a lot of deaths and disease. Biologically, they are fascinating to study because they are very well adapted to their hosts> So from learning about their biology, you also learn a lot about the human body, the immune system and things like that

    • Photo: Mark Booth

      Mark Booth answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Hi BaggyMaggy – they are just intrinsically fascinating, ancient organisms. Studying them can tell us a lot about ourselves because they have been around longer than we have.

    • Photo: Arporn Wangwiwatsin

      Arporn Wangwiwatsin answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      I’m amazed by the strategies they used to survive. Different parasites have different strategies, and bodies they infect have ways of defence too. So it’s like an endless encounter that can teach us so much about what’s going on in nature.

      Also parasites (or things that parasitise) are everywhere not only in human and not all of them cause diseases. There are birds that parasitise other birds and there are plants that parasitise other trees, too! These can have effects on the ecosystem in some ways too. So I think seeing them as such a wide-spread phenomenon make it even more fascinating to me.

    • Photo: Linda Anagu

      Linda Anagu answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      @ BaggyMaggy, well I told myself that it will be very rewarding to overcome those tiny tormentor. They have taken loved ones.

    • Photo: Claire Bourke

      Claire Bourke answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Parasites have been my biggest fascination in science so far. i find them fascinating for loads of reasons: 1) parasite infections are very common in people, for example I have worked with communities in which over half of the people that we collected samples from had at least one infection! For that reason, finding ways to better treat and cure parasitic infections would be a really effective way to improve global health, which is a basic requirement to make our world better; 2) the biology of parasites is really complicated, which means that there is loads to learn, explore and discover! This makes it fun and challenging to be a parasitologist, especially if you like problem solving like I do; 3) another big passion of mine is the immune system & studying parasites can help us to better understand how the immune system works. For example, schistosome eggs (produced by parasitic worms called schistosomes) contain molecules that generate a specific type of immune response, which means that we can use these molecules to artificially create this type of immune response and see what cells and immune mediators are involved. The same response is also involved in wound healing and allergies, so studying parasites can also help us to understand these processes too.

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