Cienciaes.com: Molecular tools against parasites. We spoke with María Mar Siles Lucas

2019-08-01 10:31:46

A parasite is an organism that lives at the expense of another organism, which we call a host, taking advantage of it to survive and reproduce. Parasites abound everywhere and use a huge variety of strategies. They have generally evolved together with the host and both creatures, in a merciless fight between them, have been adapting to each other and generating strategies that make parasites resistant and difficult to combat. Some are tiny, they are made up of a single cell, such as the plasmodium, which causes malaria or malaria, others, on the other hand, are multicellular, such as helminths (helminth means “worm” in Greek), among which there is a great variety that spend a good part of their lives inside many animals, including us. To complete the list, there are those that, as with lice, ticks, etc., live outside the host, feeding on it, bothering it with their bites and serving as vectors for other parasites.

Fighting against parasites is not an easy task, as our interviewee today in Speaking with Scientists says, Maria Mar Siles Lucasdirector of Livestock Parasitosis and Parasitic Zoonosis Group# in it Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Salamanca. María Siles studies how parasites are related to their hosts with the aim of developing state-of-the-art molecular techniques that make it possible to quickly and safely diagnose whether a person or animal is infected by a parasite.

The molecular techniques used by “Mar Siles”: and his team have allowed the development of tools that allow the diagnosis of a series of “zoonotic” diseases, that is, that affect both humans and animals. Among them is giardiasis produced by a unicellular parasite, Giardia, which causes intestinal disorders and is transmitted by contact with feces; hydatidosis, caused by the larvae of a type of tapeworm, which is transmitted by ingesting infected food and forms cysts; schistosomiasis, caused by a worm that affects more than 160 million people, especially the poorest regions of the planet.

Investigating the molecules linked to parasites and the diseases they cause not only opens the way to the development of diagnostic techniques, but also opens doors for the study of antiparasitic vaccines. In this sense, our guest and her team have participated in the development of experimental vaccines against hydatidosis and schistosomiasis.

The incidence of many of the parasitic diseases in the most disadvantaged regions of the planet has led María Mar Siles to work closely with the Development Cooperation. Thus, she has participated in projects in Peru, dedicated to the control of cysticercosis, a parasitic disease that affects pigs and other animals, and can be transmitted to humans from the consumption of infected meat. She has participated in a project aimed at creating the Environmental Parasitology Laboratory of the University of Panama and in various European projects.

I invite you to listen to Maria Mar Siles Lucasdirector of Livestock Parasitosis and Parasitic Zoonosis Group# in it Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Salamanca y Institutional Delegate of CSIC in Castile-Leon.