Hassan Hakimi and Kaylee Kipp both entered the poster/oral competition at this year’s VMBS Research Trainee Symposium and both were awarded distinguished awards including: the People’s Choice for Best Flash Talk (Kaylee Kipp), and 3rd place best poster (Hassan Hakimi). Please join us in congratulating their hard work and great science communication skills! Great job guys!
Go ahead…Make my May!
It’s time to recognize again all the scientific contributions that the Verocai Lab has made this year thus far. Enjoy catching up on all these really interesting publications!
The Role of Parasitoid Wasps, Ixodiphagus spp. (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), in Tick Control
Congrats to all our 2023 award recipients!
The Verocai Lab swept the Grammys!….The Grammys of veterinary school at least! We are so very proud of all the members who received an award at this year’s VMBS Honors and Awards Ceremony:
Merck Parasitology Award: Hannah Danks & Veronica Negron
Texas Veterinary Medical Foundation Student Research Scholar Award: Cora Garcia
American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Award: Andrew Brown
Richard H. Davis Teaching Award: Guilherme Verocai
VMBS Excellence in Diversity Award: Meriam Saleh
Charles Dar-worm Day
Happy Darwin Day! The TAMU Parasitology Club and members of the awesome Criscione Lab had a great time interacting with the Texas A&M and College Station community. We had games, prizes, and, of course, the best parasite specimens you could ask for! Take a look through our photo album to see how much fun we had communicating science and parasitology to our wonderful community. We would also like to especially thank Jenna Hulke, Ryne Maness, and Chelsea Thorn for helping us put together this really cool event.
…By the way, did you know that Charles Darwin could have been infected by a parasite on his famous Beagle voyage!? Check it out!
AAVP STUDENT WEBINAR SERIES
We are thrilled to announce the launch of the AAVP Student Webinar Series: “We Are Veterinary Parasitologists”. These parasite-centric seminars are intended for the student chapters of AAVP (like our own AAVP TAMU Parasitology Club!) and all students who wish to be apart of AAVP. Our first talk will be from Dr. Jairo Alfonso Mendoza Roldan entitled, “Slithery Parasites: why and how to study zoonotic parasites of reptiles?”. See the images below for more information and, as always, check out the home page (scroll to bottom) for updates on your TAMU Parasitology Club and how to join for this (and more) great opportunities!
The Virbac Vets
Yesterday, AAVP TAMU was delighted to host Virbac for a fun, informative, and interactive lunch seminar! We would like to thank personally Dr. Ryan Reynolds, Dr. Cristiano von Simson, and Dr. John Wood for coming and delivering a very helpful presentation to our students. The Verocai Lab was personally impressed by the range of parasites covered (in less than hour!) but still being able to focus on individual and broad range treatment/prevention plans of specific parasites of veterinary relevance. We are very grateful and excited for potentially more collaborations in the future. Great work and thank you!
New Year, New Papers!
It’s been a busy year and that means lots, and lots of papers! The last time we updated our recently published papers was in Spring(!), so we have a ton of hard work to share from the past year. We hope everyone had a wonderful break and we look forward to another productive new semester.
Extensive Aberrant Migration of Onchocerca lupi in a Dog
The Prevalence and Control of Lungworms of Pastoral Ruminants in Iran
Evaluation of urine for Dirofilaria immitis antigen detection in dogs
An unusual case of Brugia sp. infection in a dog from Alberta, Canada
Dr. John Gilleard visits the Verocai Lab!
This week the Verocai Lab hosted distinguished parasitologist Dr. John Gilleard at Texas A&M University. Dr. Gilleard is a Professor of Parasitology and Associate Dean of Research at the University
of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. His research group integrates parasitology, genetic
and genomic approaches to study the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance in parasites and population genetic approaches to investigate its emergence and spread. Furthermore, Dr. Gilleard has developed novel molecular approaches to study the epidemiology of parasitic infections. Many of these ideas were highlighted in his very informative and engaging VTPB Seminar at the TAMU Veterinary School.
Not only is Dr. Gilleard an esteemed colleague of the parasitology community, he is also a active mentor and supporter of the Verocai lab. Together, we are always excited to share ongoing research projects and discuss potential collaborative opportunities to advance the study of parasitology. Indeed, we are very lucky to have wonderful colleagues like Dr. Gilleard, and we were honored to host him for these days of parasitology fun. The only downside was the sudden gray, cold weather (a bit too ‘English’ as Dr. Gilleard would put it, a native Liverpool resident), but we will make sure to bring him back for some of that Texas heat and sunshine!
NCVP Newsletter features the lab!
Check out this month’s NCVP Fall Newsletter! Many current and former members of the lab are highlighted in the newsletter, including the cover! Congratulations to Dr. Verocai (the boss), Dr. Caroline Sobotyk (former post-doc), (soon-to-be) Dr. Tiana Sanders (former visiting student), and Dr. Sarah Myers (former visiting student) on all their recent successes and parasitology fame.
Kaylee wins bison scholarship!
Verocai Lab PhD student Kaylee Kipp has been awarded the Throlson American Bison Foundation scholarship! Check out the link to learn more about this prestigious award. Congrats Kaylee!!!
(Photo Credit: Ryan Moehring / USFWS, Flickr/Creative Commons)