Parasites

Parasites

Despite their large size, protozoan parasites are particularly adept at avoiding the unwanted attention of their hosts. This remarkable ability highlights the need for equally clever strategies to prevent and treat infection. With parasitic diseases such asmalaria and sleeping sickness affecting manymillions in the developing world, recent research in genetics and cell biology provides us with ...

Biliary parasites.

Parasitic diseases of the biliary tract occur frequently in tropical and subtropical areas and cause high morbidity and mortality. In general, neither the clinical presentation nor the general laboratory findings are sufficiently unique to raise the possibility of a parasitic biliary infestation in the mind of the surgeon. Once considered, however, the presence of a parasitic biliary infestatio...

Gastrointestinal Parasites

Protozoan Parasites

When viewed from the top, Trichodina is circular; side views of the organism reveal a saucer or dome shape (Fig. 1). It has three rings of cilia (small, hair-like projections) encircling its body and oral cavity, which are used for locomotion and feeding. Its body is supported by a rigid ring of interconnected discs called a chitinoid or denticular ring (Fig. 2). Each disc has a thorn-like inne...

Parasites on parasites: coupled fluctuations in stacked contact processes

We present a model for host-parasite dynamics which incorporates both vertical and horizontal transmission as well as spatial structure. Our model consists of stacked contact processes (CP), where the dynamics of the host is a simple CP on a lattice while the dynamics of the parasite is a secondary CP which sits on top of the host-occupied sites. In the simplest case, where infection does not i...