Friends of Parasitology Friends of Parasitology The Institute of Parasitology NewsletterThe Institute of Parasitology Newsletter

Volume 3, Fall/winter, 2006

vision. We have an interview with Smriti inside this newsletter. We are also busy planning for our 75th Anniversary Symposium in August 2007-see details inside. This Symposium coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Macdonald campus and we have been busy with several events to celebrate this centennial. A recent feature was the Macdonald Centenary Symposium which Tim Geary helped to organize. Tim invited Dr Peter Schantz (Division of Parasitic Diseases, CDC, Atlanta) to speak on “Emerging parasitic zoonoses: national and international perspectives”. Peter also spoke at the Institute on the “Emergence of canine visceral leishmaniasis in N America 2000-2005” and met with our graduate students We were delighted to be able to host Peter and his wife Mary Bartlett during his visit. Enjoy the news inside and keep us up to date with any alumni news. We love to hear from you!

1 A word from the Director

1 From the Editor

2 Research: making a difference

2 International Consortium on

Anthelmintic Resistance

2 Student Conversations

3 Institute Kudos

3 CSZ at McGill

3 Alumni Feedback

4 In conversation with Christiane

Trudeau

4 Recognition of Donors

4 Homecoming News

I N T H I S I S S U E

Institute of Parasitology Macdonald Campus, McGill University 21,111 Lakeshore Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec Canada H9X 3V9 Tel. : (514) 398-7726 Fax : (514) 398-7857 graduate.parasitology@mcgill.ca Director Terry Spithill

Editor: Jim Smith james.smith@mcgill.ca

From the Editor

A word from

the Director Welcome again to the Fall/Winter edition of the Newsletter and more news on the progress of the Institute. We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Florence Dzierszinski as a new Assistant Professor at the Institute starting December 2006. As you will see from the website (http://www.mcgill.ca/parasitology/faculty/dzierszinski/), Florence’s research interest is the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, a major global zoonotic pathogen with significant socioeconomic impact, especially in countries where the meat industry is highly developed as in Canada. Transmission of T. gondii is mainly due to eating undercooked infected meat. In 1995 in Canada, a major toxoplasmosis outbreak was caused by the contamination of drinking water supplies. Florence will study the molecular interactions between intracellular parasites such as T. gondii and their host cells, including immune subversion, host cell responses and parasite persistence in immune-privileged areas. Florence will use an exciting multi-disciplinary approach involving molecular genetics, cell biology, functional genomics and immuno-parasitology to dissect the interplay between T. gondii and the antigen presentation pathways in the host cell. These studies will provide new insights into toxoplasmosis and will illuminate similar processes in related vacuolar parasites including the malarial pathogens (Plasmodium sp.). Florence’s work will have implications for vaccine design. Florence joins Reza Salavati and Tim Geary as new appointees at the Institute. We will have an interview with Florence in our next Newsletter. The Institute has just welcomed a large cohort of students this Fall. We were delighted to award the Robert P Harpur Fellowship to Smriti Kala who joins Reza Salavati’s lab from New Delhi. Bob Harpur was committed to supporting the training of international students so Smriti will be the first of many students who will benefit from Bob Harpur’s

Institute Director Terry Spithill

Continued on page 2

McGill

As we in Montreal brace ourselves for yet another winter, I envy those of our readers who do not have such a harsh winter climate. However, the snow does bring other opportunities to enjoy the cold crisp mornings and the swish-swish sound of cross-country skis. As you peruse this issue, you will see we have had a busy and productive summer with visits to major international meet-ings, appointment of a new academic staff member and a major new crop of excellent students who started their graduate studies this Fall. The culturally rich international flavour of the Institute continues to be maintained with new students from India, Kenya, France and Egypt, new Canadians from Iran, Colum-bia and India, and students from Que-bec and British Columbia. Many of you will remember Institute functions, such as the Christmas parties, at which one of the highlights is the wide range of inter-esting and delicious foods that our inter-national mix produces. The mouth waters at the thought!

International Consortium on Anthelmintic

Resistance (CARS)

If you would prefer to receive future issues of this newsletter electronically, please notify Jim Smith at james.smith@mcgill.ca

FRIENDS OF PARASITOLOGY Volume 3 2

Student Conversations

Anthelmintics are still the first line of defence against helminth infections of humans and animals. However, the di-lemma is that their continued use fre-quently leads to lower efficacy due to

Smriti Kala is the first recipi-ent of the Robert P Harpur Fellowship in Parasitology. Smriti is from New Delhi, In-dia, and is doing her graduate

studies with Dr Reza Salavati What is your background? I did my Bachelor’s and my Master’s de-grees both in India. My Master’s was in Bioscience and it was a course-based degree. Although there were practicals (labs), there was no project. I obtained my research experience working at the National Institute for Immunology. I was there for two and a half years. Initially, I was working on a project studying Sys-temic Lupus Erythematosus. My role was raising monoclonal antibodies in the mouse model of the disease. After this, I switched to a different lab and was work-ing on Japanese Encephalitis Virus and again I was raising monoclonal antibod-ies, so I am quite conversant with hybridoma technology.

More than 20 significant publications flow from the research carried out annually at the Institute. Their impact on the disci-pline is not always evident, so, in this and subsequent issues, we will highlight a recent publication and present the au-thors’ (supervisor and student) view on the paper. Bourguinat C, Pion SDS, Kamgno J, Gardon J, Gardon-Wendel N, Duke B O L, Prichard RK and Boussinesq M, (2006). Genetic polymorphism of the beta-tubulin gene of Onchocerca volvu-lus in ivermectin naïve patients from Cameroon, and its relationship with fertil-ity of the worms. Parasitology 131: 1-8

The source of material for this study was based on work published in the Lancet, which had a very well controlled experimental de-sign. The authors examined the ef-fect of dose and

frequency of application of ivermectin on Onchocerca infected individuals in Cam-eroon. Onchocerca volvulus causes “River Blindness”. In collaboration with these authors, we were able to obtain nodules containing worms from pre-treatment patients. The object of our study was to extract the DNA and pheno-type the females in order to look at the frequency of occurrence of the two hap-lotypes, a and b, of a particular gene, beta-tubulin. We chose this gene be-cause in a number of other studies that we have done, it has been associated with resistance to the anthelmintic drug ivermectin. As the first part of a two part study to look at pre and post treated worms we were interested to look at the gene haplotype frequency in relation to female worm fecundity. We did not just

look at this particular relationship: we had a whole range of data and this was the only association in which a correlation with gene haplotype frequency was ob-served. A surprising result was that we found that heterozygous female worms were significantly less fecund than the homozygous worms. Biologically this was quite surprising and interesting as well as a new finding. It is also of potential im-portance for the disease and transmis-sion. If a particular worm genotype is more or less fertile this is going to have and impact on the transmission dynam-ics.

I was very pleased to do this work be-cause it had never been done before and afforded the opportunity to collaborate with researchers in

France and Cameroon. One of the chal-lenges in doing this work was extracting the worms from the nodules. These sam-ples had been stored in preservative for many years and usually it takes about four hours using collagenases to extract the worms from fresh material; in my case, it often took up to two weeks. It meant frequent monitoring, both day and night, to make sure that the worms them-selves did not get digested. It was also difficult to phenotype the worms under the microscope. We were not quite sure that we would get the beta-tubulin DNA sequence. This gene is so important and impinges on many functions in the cell and we thought that there could be some associations with fitness. However, the final answer was quite unexpected. This work is just the lead-in to ongoing studies which are now investigating the impact of drug treatment on the fre-quency distribution of gene haplotypes in relation to drug resistance develop-ment and disease transmission.

Research: making a difference

In our upcoming 75th year, the Institute is set to celebrate this momentous occa-sion with a Symposium and dinner which I hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend. There are more details inside! Hope you enjoy this issue. Please con-tinue to send us your comments and news. I wish you all the best for the com-ing holiday season and the New Year

resistance by the parasites to these drugs. Ongoing research at the Institute has been directed towards understanding the mechanisms of drug resistance and the development of molecular markers allowing early recognition of resistance in these treated populations. Early recogni-tion of drug resistance would allow health care professionals to change treatment regimes before the resistance spreads with the aim of maintaining adequate parasite control, reducing the spread of resistant organisms and prolonging the useful life of available anthelmintics. As part of the effort in this battle, Roger Prichard organized the first ever Interna-tional Consortium on Anthelmitic Resis-tance which was held in August, 2006, in Glasgow, Scotland. The workshop was attended by 51 researchers from acade-mia, industry and multinational organiza-tions from 11 countries. In addition to Roger, Drs Tim Geary, Alain Roulet and Lourdes Mottier from the Institute at-tended. Roger reported “It was very suc-cessful and has provided momentum for an international collaborative effort to develop molecular markers for drug re-sistance in helminth parasites of humans and animals”. A second workshop is planned for Aug., 2007 in Ghent, Belgium.

Roger Prichard

Catherine Bourguinat

3 FRIENDS OF PARASITOLOGY Volume 3

Institute Kudos

CSZ at McGill

This spring, McGill will host the Canadian Society of Zoologists annual meeting and Gaetan Faubert (Chair) and Marilyn Scott are prominent members of the local Organizing Committee. The theme of the meeting is “Zoology in the Genomics Era”. We are particularly excited as our annual CHPI symposium is being held jointly with the Parasitology section of the CSZ. In keeping with the overall theme of the meeting, the Parasitology Sympo-sium is entitled “Understanding Host-

Alumni Feedback

Why Canada, McGill and the Institute? I wanted to do a PhD and obtain more research experience so I decided to ap-ply in Canada and Europe, but I espe-cially wanted to come to Canada be-cause my fiancé was here. I chose McGill because it has such a good repu-tation and parasites really interest me. I wanted to explore this area, so I decided to apply to Dr Salavati’s lab because RNA editing was totally interesting to me. I found his work really fascinating and something I had never done before. Be-fore I wrote to him, I read through all his papers and found them really fascinating and fortunately he asked me to join his lab. So in general terms what is your project? Dr Salavati’s work is on RNA editing and the editosome, the protein complex which catalyzes the process of RNA edit-ing in the Trypanosomatids. I will be working on one of the components of the editosome, the KREPA4 protein, which has been shown to be involved in RNA binding. So I am going to be looking for the particular motifs in this protein re-sponsible for RNA binding and also test if there are any protein-protein interactions. What are your long term goals after you have completed your PhD? I think I would like to try and get a job in industry. I have never worked in this area before and I think it would be an interest-ing experience. What are your interests outside the University?

Thank you for continuing to send me the Newsletter “Friends of Parasitology”. The newsletters are interesting and well written and I do enjoy reading them, even though it is now well over 50 years since I obtained my PhD at the Institute of Parasitology (in 1953) on the pleasant MacDonald Campus. I was very lucky, as my supervisor, teacher and subsequently friend was Don Fairbairn who not only taught me a lot, but ensured that my time at Mac-donald College was one of the most pleasant and interesting periods of my life. I was newly married and my wife, Audrey, also did some research work with Don Fairbairn. My original background was in biochem-istry, so my research while at the Institute centred on the amino acid metabolism of the ovaries of the round worm Ascaris lumbricoides. I continued this research at the University of Sydney when I returned to Australia, and altogether published 5 papers on the amino acid metabolism of the Ascaris ovaries. Subsequently, Don came to Sydney and we worked together again. Later, I be-came interested in developmental bio-chemistry and particularly in the meta-bolic changes that occurred in mitochon-dria during the development of rat em-bryos. I retired in 1987, but continued doing research at the University of Syd-ney as an Honorary Research Associate until 2004. Thank you again for sending the News-letter to me. Yours sincerely, John K. Pollak N.S.W, Australia

Congratulations to Dr Bernadette Ardelli who accepted a faculty position in the Zoology Department at Brandon University,

Manitoba, in June of this year. Bernadette completed her Master’s and PhD at the University of Guelph and was a postdoctoral Fellow and research associate in Roger Prichard’s laboratory for 6 years. She is also the Secretary of the Parasitology Section of the CSZ. Congratulations to new student Carli Halpenny, who was the recipient of the Lynden Laird Lyster recruitment award. Carli joins the lab of Dr Marilyn Scott and will be working on an ecological project investigating nutrient stress and chronic parasitic infection on host susceptibility in

human populations. Congratulations to new student Smriti Kala who is the first recipient of the Robert P Harpur Fellowship in Parasitology. Smriti earned her Master’s in India and is working on her PhD in Dr Reza Salavati’s Lab. Congratulations to Normand Cyr on his success in obtaining an FQRNT scholarship. Normand has begun his PhD in Armando Jardim’s lab. Finally congratulations to Michael Nyisztor who received a CIHR scholarship to complete his Master’s also in Armando Jardim’ Lab. The Institute’s Director, Terry Spithill, has been reappointed to his position for five more years. We congratulate him and look forward to his continued success at the helm.

I enjoy reading, but I do not have much time to do things; when I have time, I like to travel also. So are you prepared for the winter? Oh, I have heard stories about it, but actually I am quite excited about the ex-perience. Congratulations on being awarded the Robert P Harpur Fellowship. Dr Harpur had a particular interest in helping inter-national students and I know he would be pleased with the Awards Committee’s choice for the first awardee.

Parasite Interactions: How Bioinformatics & Ecoinformatics Can Help.” The website is under construction but should soon be packed with information, so log on to http://martin.parasitology.mcgill.ca/csz2007 to check it out.

Friends of Parasitology

Help us reach our Alumni

If you know of any alumni or friends who have not received this newsletter please let us know.

Contact Jim Smith at james.smith@mcgill.ca.

FRIENDS OF PARASITOLOGY Volume 3 4

Homecoming News 75th Anniversary

Celebration Sat 11 Aug, 2007

In conversation with Christiane Trudeau

Many of you will remember and recog-nize Christi-ane Tru-deau. She first started working at

the Institute in 1983 after receiving her BSc in Wildlife Resources at Macdonald. She is now the administrator of the new Biotechnology program and she reflects on her time at the Institute. Twenty three years at the Institute! How did you come to start working here? I first started work on a part-time contract basis with Dr Rau on the northern zoono-sis project, in which Mark Curtis was also involved. Part of that project involved looking at Echinococcus infections in moose in northern Quebec. Then in 1986, Roger (Prichard) hired me for contract work on live animal trials on pharmaceutical drugs with anti-parasitic efficacy. Pierre Rousseau was manag-ing his lab at the time but he was a bio-chemist and did not want anything to do with animals. Eventually, when he left, I took over the management of the lab and continued working on contract drug stud-ies. So what made you change to admini-stration of the Biotechnology pro-gram? Well, several reasons. There was less contract work, so I was basically just maintaining parasite stocks and the lab and also the physical side of working with farm animals was getting more diffi-cult for me. The Biotechnology Certificate program had just been approved and the position was available. Also during this time you were up-grading your skills as well? Yes, I decided to become more proficient in English-French translation as I was being asked to do it from time to time. I first took a Bachelor Certificate in transla-tion, then a Graduate Diploma in transla-tion, and so I became the unofficial trans-lator for the Institute. What has been the biggest chal-lenges for you in the Biotech program? When I came on board, it was January 1999 and the first students started in the same month. I think the challenges have been getting used to all the McGill poli-

cies and getting the right information to the students. Students ask a lot of ques-tions; they want to know where they are going and that they are on the right track, and it is a challenge to make sure that you can provide them with the correct information. You must have seen quite a few changes at the Institute? Things that stand out are of course the opening of the new wing of the Institute, which had a big impact because it meant moving and reorganizing the lab. Also I have seen a big change in the research that is going on with the move to molecu-lar biology; everything has become so high tech now. On a recreation side, I know you like to play soccer What other things do you like to do? Yes, I love soccer and I play 11-a-side outdoors and 5-a-side indoors in the win-ter. I also enjoy badminton and spinning. In the summer, I like to hike, particularly in the Eastern Townships, but also around Mont Tremblant in the Lauren-tians. I want to explore the hiking trails in the States, particularly the Adirondacks and the White Mountains. What about the future? I really like what I am doing and the inter-action with the students. Now that we have the Master’s program, it is even more interesting. I was involved at the inception of the Master’s in Biotechology and helped put that together. It was a lot of work, but enjoyable. The thing I like about my job is that it has many compo-nents and keeps me interested. The Bio-tech program is still evolving and getting larger. There is lots to keep me busy; I am very happy here.

Dr. Zafer Ali-Khan Dr. Paul Brassard Dr. Roni Daoud Ms Maureen Engler* Mr. Haseeb Randhawa Dr. Marilyn Scott Dr. Terry Spithill * * repeat donor Should you wish to contribute to the “Friends of Parasitology” fund, please send donations to : Friends of Parasitology Development and Alumni Relations McGill University 1430 Peel St Montréal Quebec H3A A3T

Friends of Parasitology

To celebrate the 75 Anniversary of the Institute, we are planning a special Homecoming event, Saturday 11 Au-gust, 2007. Mark your calendars; we want to see you there. We will, of course, be having an Open House at the Institute where you’ll see the changes being made and have the opportunity to chat with students and staff. In the after-noon, there will be a special Symposium entitled : “ Parasitic diseases: old prob-lems with new solutions” . The program is still being finalized. Following the Symposium, there will be a mixer with a chance to speak with the presenters and catch up on news with old friends and acquaintances. This will be followed by a four-course dinner at the Ceilidh. Tickets for the Homecoming dinner are $50.00 per person. Please let us know whether you plan to attend by contacting Mary Solana: Institute of Parasitology, Macdonald Campus, McGill, 21,111 Lakeshore Rd, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Qc, H9X 3V9 or at : mary.solana@mcgill.ca

Recognition of Donors In 2004, the Institute was designated a special status group by the University. This means that our donors or “Friends of Parasitology” can have their contribu-tions to McGill go directly to the Institute of Parasitology to fund graduate students who wish to study here. Since 2004, the Institute has been the beneficiary of a number of generous do-nations that will help our students. At present our fund holds $2,600 As such, we would like to recognize and thank the following alumni and friends for their generous donations and who agreed to let us publish their names. Institute Fall BBQ: Chefs braving the cold