WG4: Blastocystis in vitro and in vivo investigations

Blastocystis in vitro and in vivo investigations

Objectives

  • To analyse and consistently characterise previously published or newly acquired microbiome data obtained from human volunteers, both healthy and with intestinal symptoms, harbouring Blastocystis
  • To perform the same analyses in animals in order to compare the microbial residents of their microbiome with humans, but also to investigate if there are any associated microbes that are transmitted along with Blastocystis
  • To bring together experts of in vivo and in vitro culturomics of Blastocystis to put together protocols to culture all the subtypes, both xenically and axenically to investigate the role of these microorganism within the host and the microbiome
  • To generate and analyse metabolomic data from the established cultures in the previous objective and compare these results with the omics data generated from WG3

Team Leaders

Katerina Jirku (Pomajbikova)

Position: MC Member; leader of Working Group 4

Affiliation: Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Parasitology, Branišovská 31, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic

Research interests: Medical and veterinary parasitology. Role of intestinal eukaryotes in human health. Epidemiology of intestinal protists in gut-healthy humans.

Kevin Tan

Position: Co-Lead WG4

Affiliation: National University of Singapore

Research interests: Parasitology, host-parasite interactions, bioimaging, cell biology, drug studies, microbiome, Blastocystis, malaria

Daisy Shaw

Position: WG4 ECR Lead

Affiliation: Laboratory of Evolutionary and Molecular Parasitology, RAPID group, University of Kent, UK

Research Interest: Blastocystis, gut microbiome, host-parasite interactions, health and disease

Evren Tileklioglu

Position: WG4 ECR Lead

Affiliation: Aydin Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Parasitology, Aydin, Türkiye

Research Interest: Medical parasitology, Blastocystis, Antiparasitic activity, Diagnosis, epidemiology,  prevention, and control of parasitic diseases