Parasites Are Everywhere. Why Do So Few Researchers Study Them?
Parasites Are Everywhere. Why Do So Few Researchers Study Them?
www.smithsonianmag.com
Just a moment...
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Gardner felt healthy, but he decided to check himself for parasites, as one looks for ticks after a hike. He put a sample of his own feces on a microscope slide and peered through the glass. Immediately, he was shocked: Hidden within the sample were clusters of tiny, light-yellow eggs.
“I’m used to looking at that with regular animals,” says Gardner. “But I’m not a regular animal—I’m me!”
It's a shame that parasitology isn't more "popular", just from a discovery standpoint there's a lot of potential for all sorts of eg. immunomodulatory drugs there, and I have a vague memory that there's already clinical trials underway for a drug related to autoimmune diseases that was derived from how some parasite shuts off parts of the host immune system
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Evolution is a heck of a teacher.
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That's incredibly interesting. I can seemingly only find information on helminthic therapy, if you come across it do you mind passing some information this way?
Also, I read this last night and literally wanted to pack up my bags and head to Nebraska. I am glad that they are getting some funding, it sounds like they're cataloging the various species. I wondered if they performed studies as well, but I probably am going to go and have to track down more information myself if I want to know more. But it was a really comfy read, and sparked the imagination. Which is what The Smithsonian is supposed to do, so mission accomplished!
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I did some digging and can't for the life of me find that clinical trial I was thinking of so I might just be remembering it wrong, but I do know there's a lot of interest in parasite-derived immunomodulatory molecules, which interestingly do often seem to be derived from helminth excretions or secretions.
This 2022 Frontiers in Parasitology article titled Immunomodulatory and biological properties of helminth-derived small molecules: Potential applications in diagnostics and therapeutics seems like a good review of the current situation.
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