Parasitology

The Parasitology Research Theme is headed by Professor Andy Waters.

The work of this group is directed towards understanding parasites and their interactions with hosts in order to provide a rational basis for disease management and the development of new chemotherapeutic agents or vaccines.  Specifically, the group is concerned with the mechanisms of pathogenicity, host cell recognition by parasites, analysis of specific virulence factors, the molecules of pathogens that stimulate or modulate immune responses and the nature of these immune responses, mechanisms of immune regulation and evasion, key surface molecules, identifying and characterising drug targets, elucidating mechanisms of drug resistance, and the design of novel drugs and vaccines to combat parasitic diseases, the study of the interaction of the insect vector with its parasite infection and with man.

We work on parasites of both human and veterinary importance. Those currently being studied include: leishmanias (Burchmore, Mottram), trypanosomes (Barrett, Hammarton, de Koning, McCulloch, Moss, Turner), malaria parasites (Muller, Ranford-Cartwright, Waters) and their mosquito vectors (Ferguson), Toxoplasma (Meissner) and schistosomes (Hagan).  

Many of our Group Leaders are also members of the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology. There are ongoing collaborations both nationally (e.g. with the Pathogen Unit at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) with many overseas groups, especially in Africa (including the Glasgow-African Network), Europe, North and South America and Australia.

The Research Theme is housed in a modern state of the art building (Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre) and offers a fully equipped facilities such as: Sir Henry Wellcome Post Genome Analysis Facility which will include a new metabolomics facility, imaging facility (including deltavision), High Content Cell Screening facility,  dedicated bioinformatics,  pathogen handling facilities (category 2 and 3).