Dr. Jenna Hulke spent three weeks in Kenya, from September 9th to 30th, collecting Bulinus sp. snails and schistosome parasites: Schistosoma haematobium, which infects humans, and S. bovis, which infects cattle.
During these three weeks, with the help of our Kenyan collaborators at KEMRI, she collected snails, screened them for pre-existing infections, collected schistosome parasites (from infected patients or infected cattle), and exposed uninfected snails to these parasites. She then returned to Texas Biomed with both exposed and some uninfected snails to establish S. haematobium and S. bovis parasite populations in the Anderson lab. The goal is for Jenna to cross these two parasite species and evaluate the impact of hybridization on the fitness and genome of the hybrid offspring.
Congratulations to Jenna and the Kenyan team for their tremendous effort and such successful teamwork!