Congrats Jillian and the triatomine colony crew for being awarded a National Center for Veterinary Parasitology grant in support of triatomine behavior and transmission experiments!

Sarah is appointed as the Richard Schubot Endowed Chair and Center Director.

Effective September 1 2017, Sarah is now an Associate Professor with tenure!

Welcome to new Associate Research Scientist Dr. Sujata Balasubramanian!

Alyssa and coauthors’ new findings of Chagas disease parasite in the government working dogs along the Texas-Mexcio border are published in PLoS Negl Trop Dis, and were reviewed in News-at-a-Glance in Science:

Chagas disease in border dogs

Chagas disease, which causes fever, swelling, and headaches and can lead to heart failure, is an emerging threat for humans in the southern United States. But it’s also taking a toll on dogs, scientists reported last week in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The researchers took blood samples from 528 dogs, mostly Belgian Malinois and German shepherds, that are assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in detecting narcotics or tracking humans along the Texas-Mexico border. Some 39 of the dogs had antibodies against Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease and is transmitted by bloodsucking insects known as “kissing bugs.” That number increased to 100 when inconclusive tests were judged positive. Although some infected dogs do not exhibit any symptoms, others develop debilitating cardiac disease that may lead to death. No vaccines or treatments to treat dogs infected with T. cruzi are approved in the United States.

Congrats to our three Veterinary Medical Summer Research Training Program (VMSRTP) students that just presented their summer research at the NIH Veterinary Scholars Symposium: Julie Purnell, Sarah Slack, and Megan Ellis (From CSU).  Great work to grad student mentors Italo and Alyssa!

Whoop! Congrats Carolyn for being named the recipient of the 2017 American Committee of Medical Entomology (ACME) Young Investigator Award- Graduate on behalf of ACME and the overarching American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Carolyn was also selected to given an oral presentation in the ACME trainee symposium.

Congrats to Dr. Hodo on a successful PhD defense and dissertation completion.

We’ve officially processed our 3,000th citizen-submitted kissing bug! Please read more about our Citizen Science program and how to submit bugs to our program at our website. You can also work with the interactive map to see the origin of all these bugs across ~15 states since 2013. Thanks to all citizen scientists to help generate this unprecedented dataset.  http://kissingbug.tamu.edu/