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

对传染病的研究通常侧重于单一寄生虫感染。然而，大多数人同时感染多种寄生虫，寄生虫在宿主体内相互作用。这些相互作用可能会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童中多种肠道寄生虫的直接和间接相互作用。将对寄生虫的患病率进行量化，并通过免疫学试验检查相互作用。这项研究将从宿主一次只感染一种病毒的想法扩展开来，并将更好地了解宿主内寄生虫群落的形成模式和过程。最终，通过考虑感染多种寄生虫的宿主，这项研究可能会重塑针对肠道寄生虫的全球卫生干预措施的设计和实施;短期内，它将有助于越南当地的公共卫生工作。该项目还将通过研究人群水平的过程来推进疾病生态学领域。 与单一寄生虫感染相比，多物种感染的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态。本计画将研究寄生蠕虫感染对后续寄生性病原体定植的影响。第一步将使用粪便样本的PCR确定寄生虫群落的组成。第二步将使用16 S rRNA基因测序来生成关于肠道微生物群分类的数据，并将分析血液和粪便样本的免疫标记物。由于蠕虫感染发生在全球超过20亿人中，在蠕虫合并感染的背景下了解肠道疾病可能有助于解释在个体宿主中发现的寄生虫负担和疾病严重程度的异质性，并在人群水平上形成疾病动态模式。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，并对在共同感染人群中有效管理人类和动物疾病至关重要。该项目将促进美国，英国，并将对学生进行寄生虫学、免疫学和生态学方法的培训。总体研究结果将以英语和越南语出版，并将通过外展计划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.