DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The effects of multi-species interactions on the community structure of parasites

对传染病的研究通常集中在单寄生虫感染上。然而，大多数个体与多种寄生虫共同感染，寄生虫在宿主内相互作用。这些相互作用可能深刻影响寄生虫感染的结果。例如，直接相互竞争同一资源的寄生虫可能会抑制彼此的持久性。该项目将研究越南南部学校儿童多种肠道寄生虫的直接和间接相互作用。寄生虫的流行率将被量化，并通过免疫学检测相互作用。这项研究将从宿主一次只携带一种感染的想法扩展开来，并将更好地理解宿主寄生虫群落内部形成的模式和过程。最终，通过考虑感染多种寄生虫的宿主，本研究可能重塑针对肠道寄生虫的全球卫生干预措施的设计和实施；在短期内，它将帮助越南当地的公共卫生工作。该项目还将通过研究人口水平的过程来推进疾病生态学领域。它将支持研究生的培训，同时加强国际合作。与单一寄生虫感染相比，多物种感染相互作用可以以意想不到的方式深刻影响宿主适应性、寄生虫传播和疾病动力学。本项目将研究寄生虫感染对腹泻病原体随后定植的影响。第一步将使用粪便样本的PCR来确定寄生虫群落的组成。第二步将使用16S rRNA基因测序来生成肠道微生物群分类数据，并对血液和粪便样本进行免疫标记分析。由于全世界有超过20亿人感染了寄生虫，在寄生虫共感染的背景下了解腹泻疾病可能有助于解释个体宿主之间寄生虫负担和疾病严重程度的异质性以及种群水平上疾病动态的形状模式。关于这种宿主内寄生虫相互作用的知识也将对疾病生态学的研究产生重要影响，并将对共同感染人群中人类和动物疾病的有效管理具有重要意义。该项目将促进美国、英国和越南大学之间的合作，并将培养学生在寄生虫学、免疫学和生态学方面的方法。总体研究结果将以英语和越南语出版，并将通过外展项目传达给越南社区和公共卫生系统。

Research on infectious diseases typically focuses on single-parasite infections. However, most individuals are co-infected with multiple parasite species, and parasites interact with one another within hosts. These interactions may profoundly impact the outcome of parasite infections. For example, parasites that directly compete with one another for the same resource may inhibit each other's persistence. This project will examine the direct and indirect interactions of multiple intestinal parasites in school children in southern Vietnam. The prevalence of parasites will be quantified and interactions examined through immunological assays. This research will expand from the idea that hosts harbor only one infection at a time and will provide a better understanding of the patterns and processes shaping within-host parasite communities. Ultimately, by considering hosts infected with multiple parasite species, this research may reshape the design and implementation of global health interventions against intestinal parasites; in the short term it will aid in local public health efforts in Vietnam. The project will also advance the field of disease ecology by the study of population-level processes. It will support the training of a graduate student while increasing international colloboration.Compared to single-parasite infections, multi-species infection interactions can profoundly impact host fitness, parasite transmission, and disease dynamics in unexpected ways. This project will investigate the effects of parasitic helminth infections on subsequent colonization by diarrheal pathogens. The first step will determine the composition of parasite communities using PCR on stool samples. The second step will use sequence the 16S rRNA gene to generate data on the taxonomy of the gut microbiota, and blood and stool samples will be analyzed for immune markers. As helminth infections occur in over 2 billion people worldwide, understanding diarrheal diseases in the context of helminth co-infections may help explain the heterogeneity in parasite burden and disease severity found amongst individual hosts and shape patterns of disease dynamics at the population level. Knowledge about such within-host parasite interactions will also have important implications for studies in disease ecology and will be important for effective management of human and animal diseases in co-infected populations. This project will foster collaborations between U.S., U.K., and Vietnamese universities and will train students in parasitological, immunological, and ecological methods. The overall study findings will be published in both English and Vietnamese and will also be conveyed to the Vietnamese community and public health system through outreach programs.