Sep 1, 2020
Prof. Igor Cestari works with
two parasites for the most part: Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi, which respectively cause sleeping sickness
and Chagas disease.
He explains for listeners
Igor Cestari is an assistant
professor in the Institute of Parasitology at McGill University in
Montreal. He gives listeners a solid image of parasitic life cycles
and host-parasite interactions as well as why they're such
successful life forms. For example, initial
parasitic infection symptoms often mimic a cold or flu and then
disappear. Therefore, it's hard to know that one is infected until
more damaging symptoms reveal themselves.
He discusses the
parasitic diseases known as sleeping sickness and Chagas
disease most specifically and gives some reasons why the parasites
that cause these diseases are so successful. Their ability to fool
the immune system is one such reason, and while scientists
understand some of these mechanisms, there's still much they don't
know.
He teaches listeners about two
interesting parasitic tricks, namely their ability to coat
themselves in some sugars from the host cell that then hides them
from the immune system. Another parasite is able to change its
coating to one that the immune system lets by its defenses. Some of
these techniques make it challenging to create a vaccine to stop
the parasites.
However, Professor Cestari says that new genome sequencing
platforms have really helped in these efforts. He believes that the
future is promising because of utilizing combinations of genomics
and proteomics that seem to be making headway in stopping these
infections.
To learn more, see his website
at McGill University:
mcgill.ca/parasitology/faculty/igor-cestari.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK