Conferences and Talks Archives

Getting to the Heart of the Problem! ❤️

Posted on September 25, 2025.

The Verocai Lab participated in the Triennial Symposium of the American Heartworm Society in Fort Worth, Texas from September 4-7th.

Four of our members attended and shared our research findings through 2 oral presentations and 4 posters!

Both Dr. Gui Verocai and Dr. Pabasara Weerarathne were invited speakers and gave an oral presentation and participated in a round table around heartworm diagnostics. Maureen Kelly presented 3 posters on both her heartworm and Onchocerca lupi research, and Dr. Tiana Sanders presented a poster on molecular diagnostics targeting the Wolbachia endosymbiont, which was awarded the 3^rd place in the student poster presentation competition.

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Student Research Week

Posted on March 26, 2025.

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

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Dr. Verocai goes to Oklahoma for NCVP Meeting!

Posted on October 14, 2024.

Dr. Verocai participated in the Fall meeting of the National Center for Veterinary Parasitology (NCVP) in Stillwater, Oklahoma from October 8-10^th. Since 2022, Dr. Verocai serves as a member of the NCVP’s Academic Advisory Board, along with other faculty at Oklahoma State University, Cornell University, University of Guelph, Iowa State University, and Colorado State University. During the annual fall meeting, academic members, industry board members and residents participate in various activities, including a grant review panel, resident’s research updates and training sessions, discussion of other pertinent businesses, and social activities.

The mission of the NCVP is further the discipline of veterinary parasitology by bringing together partners from academia and industry to address emerging issues. In addition, the NCVP serves the veterinary profession by developing future leaders in veterinary parasitology and by supporting diagnostic and consulting services.

To date, the NCVP has funded residency training for 15 residents at 10 universities totaling over $3,000,000 in support of advanced training in veterinary parasitology (including 2 past TAMU residents!). After this cycle, the grant program has disbursed over $1,000,000 to fund veterinary parasitology research at 28 academic institutions across the US and Canada (including various TAMU projects!).

The six NCVP industry sponsors are, in alphabetical order: Antech Diagnostics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Elanco Animal Health, IDEXX, Merck Animal Health, and Zoetis.

2024 VMBS Trainee Research Symposium

Posted on February 29, 2024.

As always, The Verocai Lab strives to have a strong presence at Texas A&M and in the local community. So, we were thrilled to have three amazing talks at this year’s 2024 VMBS Trainee Research Symposium. Not only did each student give a informative, well-delivered talk about their own research area, but our very own Maureen Kelly won best oral presentation! Join us in congratulating Maureen, Kaylee, and Mary for representing Verocai Lab and unbelievable scientists.

Maureen Kelly (PhD student): Vector-borne pathogens in dogs of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands

Kaylee Kipp (PhD student): Low-level detection of benzimidazole drug resistance in wild conservation bison herds co-grazing cattle using nemabiome sequencing

Mary Schech (Veterinary student): Wolbachia-detection via qPCR as an alternative molecular and classical heartworm microfilariae detection test

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Verocai Lab heads to the peach state! (AAVP 2024)

Posted on August 15, 2024.

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