Lab awarded 2024 OVPR seed award

The lab has been awarded a Life and Medical Sciences Seed Award from Brown's OVPR for 2024!

This $50,000 award will support improvements in our ability to use DNA barcoding to characterize gastrointestinal nematodes that infect tropical wildlife species. Our own Dr. Ezequiel Vanderhoeven is a world expert in the parasitology of tropical wildlife and the seed award will help us extend our funding base for OneHealth research at the nexus of animal health and ecology.

Leveraging expert-verified data to bring wildlife parasitology into the genomics ageWe are on the cusp of a genomics revolution to usher in an era of precision wildlife parasitology—but achieving it requires reforming long-standing traditions in the field. Biologists and health practitioners need to monitor wildlife to ensure effective conservation and identify emerging infectious diseases that may threaten humans and livestock. But we may often misunderstand host-parasite interactions because we rely on overly simplistic methods to study parasite diversity in nature. Fortunately, emerging molecular and bioinformatic techniques can help overcome traditional limitations. We plan to establish genomic workflows to more precisely characterize the diversity and distribution of gastrointestinal parasites that infect wildlife in tropical hotspots. We will accomplish this by constructing and utilizing one of the largest expert-verified databases of helminth DNA in the world. This database will bridge the gap between today’s ‘gold-standard’ practice of using microscopes to painstakingly identify parasites in the field and tomorrow’s need for ‘field-ready’ methods that provide more cost-effective, accurate, and timely parasite identifications—especially for the practitioners who need these data at the right times and places to take action. We will initially use these emerging tools to map hard-to-identify parasites onto wildlife hosts in tropical forests—sloths, monkeys, and tapirs among others—in ways that are more robust than standard techniques could provide. This exciting venture features interdisciplinary collaboration among veterinarians, parasitologists, molecular biologists, and ecologists. It will provide world-class opportunities for students and researchers at Brown to engage with non-profit organizations that focus on wildlife conservation, health, and human livelihoods.
PI: Tyler Kartzinel, Peggy and Henry D. Sharpe Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Assistant Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society