Multiple current and former members of the Verocai Lab showed out at the American Heartworm Society’s Triennial Symposium this year! This included:

• Dr. Guilherme Verocai
  • Temporal patterns of Dirofilaria  immitis–derived microRNA populations in serum of experimentally infected dogs in the search for novel diagnostic biomarkers
  • Probe-based qPCR as an alternative Knott’s test when screening dogs for heartworm infection in combination with antigen detection tests 
• Dr. Caroline Sobotyk (recent resident and postdoc with Dr. Verocai; now clinical assistant professor at UPenn)
  • Detection of Dirofilaria immitis via integrated serological and molecular analyses in coyotes from Texas, USA (oral)
  • Assessing the field performance of a cell-phone based video-microscope for diagnosing heartworm infections in dogs (poster)
• Dr. Kaitlyn Upton (veterinary student researcher with Dr. Verocai; now large animal intern at University of Tennessee)
  • Heartworm, Dirofilaria immitis, in carnivores kept in zoos located in Texas, USA: Risk perception, practices, and prevalence 
• Dr. Meriam Saleh
  • Evaluation of urine for Dirofilaria immitis antigen detection in dogs
• Dr. Sarah Lane (veterinary student researcher with Dr. Verocai; now veterinarian at Oak Forest Animal Hospital in Houston, TX)

You can read more about the event in the VMBS News article that was just recently published. Congratulations everyone!

Recently Dr. Meriam Saleh was invited to share her parasitology expertise with members of the Livestock Guardian Dog Program at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in San Angelo, TX. She presented a webinar on common intestinal parasites that can infect livestock guardian dogs. Producers from across the United States were able to attend the one-hour session and learn more about how dogs are infected with these parasites and how to prevent them in their livestock guardian dogs. To learn more about the Livestock Guardian Dog Program you can check out their website.