This past month, many Verocai Lab members (and Dr. Verocai himself) were recognized for various achievements at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences Awards Ceremony! These awardees included:
Our winners and all the other worthy awardees can be found at https://vetmed.tamu.edu/awards/. Congratulations and we are incredibly proud of you and your well-deserved recognition!!!
Undergraduate students from both the Verocai and Saleh Lab took place in this years Student Research Week at Texas A&M University! We are very proud of Andre Duarte and Alexa Tapia for their wonderful contributions at SRW and being excellent ambassadors to our thriving labs. See below for more pictures of the event and their research that they presented!
Evaluation of Zoetis Vetscan Imagyst for Detection of Spirometra spp. in Feline and Canine Fecal Samples
Andre I. Duarte, Meriam N. Saleh, Alexa K. Mendoza, Joe L. Luksovsky, Guilherme G. Verocai
Probe-Based Real-Time Qualitative PCR (qPCR) Targeting Wolbachia in Combination with Other Standard Diagnostic Tests for Detection of Dirofilaria immitis
Alexa K. Tapia, Maureen A. Kelly, Tiana L. Sanders, Mary Schech, Emily Orr, Pabasara Weerarathne, Hassan Hakimi, Guilherme G. Verocai
For the past six months, the Verocai lab hosted a wonderful graduate student from Brazil, Sany Caroline Liberal. Recently, Sany shared some of her experiences in the lab and visiting the United States! Here is what she had to say and some photos from her time:
“I am a PhD student in Brazil at the School of Environmental Sciences and Agricultural Sustainability at Dom Bosco Catholic University. Between June and November 2024, I completed a PhD exchange program at Texas A&M University to conduct my research project in Parasitology, more specifically diagnosing filarioids that infect procyonids.
The PhD exchange program was a transformative experience in my academic and professional training. It was a unique opportunity to expand my research horizons, experience a new academic culture, and improve my skills in an international environment. During the months I spent at Texas A&M University, my activities were focused on molecular diagnostics and biological data analysis, and I was able to generate new data for my research, in addition to collaborating on projects that were already underway.
Working with researchers from different parts of the world also provided me with a great deal of cultural and academic learning. While the language barrier was difficult to overcome, these challenges turned into great learning experiences, teaching me how to deal with uncertain situations and how to work more collaboratively and efficiently in international environments.
When I returned to Brazil, I brought with me not only new technical knowledge, but also a broader view of the various possibilities for scientific collaboration. In addition, the experience was crucial for the development of my academic career, allowing me to build a solid foundation for publishing international articles.
My university and I are very grateful for the experience. This exchange program resulted in a significant step forward in my doctoral research and was very enriching in my journey as a student and professional. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with professionals and researchers from Texas A&M University.”
If you are considering visiting the Verocai Lab to be hosted like Sany, please do not hesitate to contact us!
Hello everyone and welcome to a new year in the Verocai Lab! A lot of research has been on going in the lab and below is just a sampling of new papers that were published this year or very recently. We hope your year is filled with new joys and, of course, new parasites (ours has been!).
Cutaneous myiasis by Calliphoridae dipterans in dogs from Chad
Congratulations to one of our very own Ph.D. candidates, Maureen Kelly, on being awarded the Rising Researcher for all of North America! She and nine other PhD students from all over the world will visit Promega Corporation in Madison, WI, in 2025. There they will have an exclusive and immersive experience designed to expand their perspectives, build new connections, and inspire future discoveries. Thank you all who voted for her, we are so proud!
https://www.promega.com/global/rising-researchers-award
Recently, Dr. Verocai visited the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), northeastern Brazil from October 22nd to 29th. The campus is located in Recife, the capital city of the State of Pernambuco. This visit was supported by the CAPES-PrINT program of the Brazilian government through a competitive process. Dr. Verocai was hosted by Drs. Leucio Câmara Alves (UFRPE) and Rafael Antonio do Nascimento Ramos from the Federal University of the Agreste of Pernambuco (UFAPE), who recently spent one year at Texas A&M University.
During his stay as a visiting professor, Dr. Verocai lectured in a graduate course “Special Topics in Diagnostic Parasitology” and had the chance to closely interact with graduate students and veterinary students interested in Parasitology.
Dr. Verocai meet with the upper administration, including Dr. Rinaldo Aparecido Mota, Dean of Research and Graduate Studies; Dr. Ana Paula Monteiro Tenório, head of the Department of Veterinary Medicine; and Dr. Fábio Mendonça, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Animal Biosciences. Naturally, there were also opportunities to discuss future collaboration with various parasitologists, including Drs. Alves and Ramos, and Drs. Renata Bandeira de Melo and Gílcia Aparecida de Carvalho.
Our own Maureen Kelly (Verocai Lab PhD Student) is one of five finalists for the Rising Researcher Award with Promega! The Promega Rising Researchers Award aims to empower and recognize PhD Students by showcasing their scientific contributions and academic journey. The final winner is determined by the person with the most votes, so please, get out there and vote for her! Congratulations Maureen on this great honor and good luck in the voting process. We are very proud you!
For months, both Kaylee and Maureen have undergone the grueling task of preparing for their preliminary examinations. For those of you who do not know, each PhD student must pass a written and oral examination that pushes the boundaries of your knowledge and expertise in your area of graduate study. It can be an intense and long process but helps demonstrate your mastery of a specialized field like veterinary parasitology! Well, I’m happy to share, that both Kaylee and Maureen have successfully passed their preliminary examinations and are officially PhD candidates! Please join us in congratulating both of them in this enormous milestone and for all of their accomplishments thus far in the Verocai Lab. We are very proud of them and we can’t wait to see them grow as future leaders in their respective fields!
This summer the Verocai Lab traveled to Atlanta, GA for the 69th Annual American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists Meeting. Verocai Lab brought a variety of diverse parasitology work to share and all attending lab members gave outstanding oral presentations this year! We are very proud of our whole team and we had an amazing time reconnecting with our colleagues in the field! Take a look below to see all the original research (and fun!) the Verocai Lab was involved in.
Oral Presentation:
Ian Daniel (PhD Student): High prevalence of vector-borne pathogens identified among dogs in Chad, determined using a targeted next generation sequencing approach
Cora Garcia (Veterinary Student): Assessing the prevalence of Cryptosporidium and Giradia in captive and wild-caught snakes from Texas
Hassan Hakimi (Post-Doctoral): Assessing the reactivity of TRX and DUF148 antigens for detection of Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis) infection in dogs
Kaylee Kipp (PhD Student): The wild side of bison nemabiome: species diversity and composition in US conservation herds
Maureen Kelly (PhD Student): Prevalence of zoonotic Onchocerca lupi in shelter dogs of an endemic region of the southwestern United States
Matthew Kulpa (PhD Student): Waiting in the wings: How recent arthropod sampling alters our understanding of vector-parasite assemblages of the northern Nearctic
Alex Mendoza (Veterinary Student): Molecular phylogenetic relationships Ornithodoros turicata collected throughout Texas
Tiana Sanders (PhD Student): SpiroDiversity: Molecular characterization of Spirometra isolates across the United States of America
Awards:
Young Investigator Travel Award – Ian Daniel, Cora Garcia, Kaylee Kipp, Maureen Kelly, Matthew Kulpa, Alex Mendoza, and Tiana Sanders
Dr. Lucienne Tritten, colleague and friend of the Verocai Lab, came to visit sunny and warm College Station this past month to collaborate, tour the lab, and give a excellent presentation on her fascinating research (“Nematode extracellular vesicles and microRNAs: tiny players with great impact”). Dr. Tritten is a Assistant Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she studies the molecular crosstalk between parasitic helminths and their mammalian hosts. She is particularly interested in the roles played by helminth nucleic acids and extracellular vesicles (EVs) in host immunomodulation. In other words, she hopes to determine how EVs released by helminths shape the outcome of an infection in hosts. Collaborations with scientist like Dr. Tritten, is one of the key reasons the Verocai Lab is able to produce novel and impactful research in the field of parasitology. If you like to learn more about Dr. Tritten, check out her webpage. Also, don’t miss some of the work that has already transpired between our labs!
