This Week in Parasitism

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson discuss reversible inhibitors of cruzipain as new drugs for treating Chagas disease. Links for this episode: Reversible cysteine protease inhibitors for Chagas (AAC) New drug candidates for Chagas (ScienceDaily) Pancake ice (YouTube) Letters read on TWiP 66 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson consider the effects of climate change on parasitic diseases. Links for this episode: Climate change and infectious diseases (Science) The more parasites the better? (Science) Host and parasite control disease risk (PNAS) Parasites dominate food web links (PNAS) The World Without Us by Alan Weisman Image credit: PLoS One Letters read on TWiP 65 Dickson's Pick Neglected by Shelly Xie (YouTube) Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson review three novel approaches to antimalarial chemotherapy. Links for this episode: Targeting PI(4)K to eliminate malaria (Nature) Antimicrobial peptides to target sporogonic stages of malaria (PLoS Path) Small molecule blocks malaria invasion of mosquito (PLoS Path) Photo credit Letters read on TWiP 64 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson discuss evidence that the malaria parasite originated in gorillas. Links for this episode: Great apes and zoonoses (Science) Source of human malaria (PNAS) Origin of human malaria parasite in gorillas (Nature) Ape Plasmodium in Cameroon not infecting humans (PNAS) No Plasmodium in greater spot-nosed monkey (Int J Parasit) TWiP 13: Toxoplasmosis Image credit Letters read on TWiP 62 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson discuss the high diversity of malaria parasites in West African bats, and a vaccine against hookworm. Links for this episode: High diversity of West African bat malaria parasites (PNAS) Human hookworm vaccine (Vaccine) Gongylonema infection in human (Am J Trop Med Hyg) Letters read on TWiP 62 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson review examples of paleoparasitology, the detection of parasites in archaeological material. Links for this episode: T. rex had Trichomonas (PLoS One) King Richard III had worms (CNN) Discovery of toilets in Japan (Mem Inst Os Cruz) Paleoparasitology in the Old World (Mem Inst Os Cruz) Soils from Seoul (J Arachael Sci) Ancient parasite infections in Old World (pdf) Ascaris in coprolites (Mem Inst Os Cruz) Human intestinal parasites in the past (Mem Inst Os Cruz) Letters read on TWiP 61 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson discuss how infection with Toxoplasma gondii causes mice to lose their aversion to cat urine, even after the parasites have been cleared. Links for this episode: T. gondii in mice causes loss of aversion to cat urine (PLoS One) Cyclosporiasis update (CDC) Letters read on TWiP 60 Listener Pick Blaine - The Worm Within Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe (free) Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson update the multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis, discuss the avian malaria parasite P. lophurae, and review protection against malaria by intravenous immunization with a nonreplicating sporozoite vaccine. Links for this episode: Cyclosporiasis outbreak in US (CDC) Extraordinary history of REV (PLoS Biology) Avian malaria (Ann NY Acad Sci) P. lophurae (J Parasitol) TWiP infects TWiV (TWiV 248) Intravenous malaria vaccine (Science) Unconventional malaria vaccine (Science) Image of apicomplexan structure: Wikipedia Letters read on TWiP 59 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe (free) Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Guest: Cali Despommier Vincent and Dickson update the multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis, and Dickson reads a chapter from his new book. Links for this episode: Dickson and Cali (jpg) Cyclosporiasis keeps spreading (ProMedMail) Cyclosporiasis is not a virus! (Gawker) Cyclosporiasis is not a virus! (Yahoo) The Global Dispatch People, Parasites, and Plowshares by Dickson Despommier Letters read on TWiP 58 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe (free) Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier Vincent and Dickson review a multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis caused by the single-celled coccidian parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis. The day after recording this episode, ProMedMail reported that the outbreak of cyclosporiasis had spread to Texas. Links for this episode: Cyclosporiasis (CDC) Cyclospora life cycle (CDC) Cyclosporiasis (Wikipedia) Cyclosporiasis outbreak, US (one, two, three) (ProMedMail) Cyclosporiasis outbreak moves to Texas (ProMedMail) Notifiable diseases, US, 2011 (CDC) Federal funding for science research (virology blog) Oculus of Singapore (YouTube) Dickson recording TWiP 57 (jpg) Dickson's stuff (jpg) People, Parasites, and Plowshares by Dickson Despommier Letters read on TWiP 57 Contact Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twip@twiv.tv Subscribe (free) Subscribe to TWiP (free) in iTunes, by the RSS feed or by email