Parasites & Vectors

Dr. Filipe Dantas-Torres is a researcher at the Aggeu Magalhães Institute and the chair of the Tropical Council for Companion Animal Parasites. He is a veterinarian with a MSc and a DSc in public health and a PhD in animal health and zoonosis. He is an EBVS^® European Veterinary Specialist in Parasitology. Dr. Dantas-Torres is an international leader in the field of parasitology, with a focus on vector-borne diseases. His work has been recognized internationally through numerous scientific publications and invited book chapters. In 2010, Dr. Dantas-Torres was elected Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society in recognition of his expertise in the field of medical and veterinary entomology. He has received numerous awards, such as the 2013 Peter Nansen Young Scientist Award and the 2016 Odile Bain Memorial Prize. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Medical and Veterinary Entomology and has served as a reviewer, associate editor and subject editor of Parasites & Vectors for several years.

Dr. Fredros Okumu is Director of Science at the Ifakara Health Institute and Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science & Technology, Tanzania. He is a mosquito biologist and public health expert working on sustainable approaches for surveillance, prevention and control of vector-borne diseases. He is also passionate about improving ecosystems for young researchers in Africa. His work has been published internationally in several prestigious scientific journals. He tweets @Fredros_Inc and occasionally writes posts for the Malaria World blog. 


Dr. Marco Pombi is Associate Professor in Parasitology at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. As a medical entomologist, he has worked extensively in malaria endemic countries, exploring several aspects of vector biology, ranging from evolutionary biology, speciation and genetics of mosquitoes, to the ecology and behaviour in relation to their vector role. He has been developing new sampling methods for surveillance, monitoring and control of disease vectors.

Dr. Martin Walker is Lecturer in Epidemiology at the Royal Veterinary College, UK, and an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. He is an active member of the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research, the Neglected Tropical Disease Modelling Consortium and leads the schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiases research theme at the Infectious Disease Data Observatory. Martin’s research interests broadly lie in the use of mathematical techniques, including disease transmission models, to assist public health decision making on interventions aiming to eliminate human helminthiases and other tropical diseases. He is also interested in statistical approaches to identifying antiparasitic drug resistance and the use of modelling to support drug development.

Dr. Xing-Quan Zhu was trained as a veterinarian with a BVSc degree and a MVSc degree. He obtained his PhD and acquired postdoctoral training in molecular parasitology at the Department of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia between 1996-2001. He is the Distinguished Professor of Parasitology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Shanxi Agricultural University, China. His current research integrates “multi-omics”, molecular and immunological approaches to study parasite biology and parasite-host interactions. His work has been recognized internationally through numerous scientific publications in well-regarded international journals including Lancet Infectious Diseases, Clinical Microbiology Reviews, Nature Communications, Trends in Parasitology and Parasites & Vectors.

Dr. Friederike Ebner is Assistant Professor in Infection Pathogenesis at the Technical University Munich in Germany. She is steering committee member of the European Veterinary Immunology Group (EVIG). She acquired postdoctoral training in parasite immunology at the Institute for Immunology of the Department of Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. As an immunologist she researches on the interactions between gastrointestinal helminths and the immune systems of animals and humans. There she aims to understand how immunity is generated and how parasites evade the immune response in order to derive intervention and vaccine strategies from this knowledge.

Dr. Adnan Hodžić received his veterinary degree (DVM) from the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and an MSc in Veterinary Parasitology from the same University. In 2014, he joined the Institute of Parasitology of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, where he completed his PhD studies and the EVPC residency program. He now works in the Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science at the University of Vienna. He is an EBVS® European Veterinary Specialist in Parasitology. His outstanding scientific contributions in the field of parasitology have been recognized by two international awards (Sinnecker-Kunz Award 2019 and Odile Bain Memorial Prize 2020).

Dr. Pegine Walrad is an Associate Professor in the York Biomedical Research Institute at the Univ. of York specialising in parasite lifecycle trans-regulators that promote virulence. Previous work isolated and characterized protein domains and 10 novel interacting cofactors (e.g. Hairless) of Runt/Runx transcription factor in Drosophila, and the first trans-regulator of surface antigens and a novel pathway of mRNA export in Trypanosoma brucei parasites. Current research focuses on genetic regulators of Leishmania parasite differentiation to human-infectious forms.

Dr. Anna Bajer is Head of the Department of Eco-epidemiology of Parasitic Diseases at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Dr. Bajer and her lab focus on a range of eco-epidemiological studies on ticks and vector-borne diseases (babesiosis, borreliosis, bartonellosis, dirofilariasis); on factors influencing parasite communities in rodents, model free-living hosts (helminths and haemoparasite community); and on reservoir of intestinal microparasites (Cryptosporidium, Giardia). She has also worked on molecular diversity and molecular phylogeny of micro- and macroparasites of medical and veterinary significance.