Veterinary Parasitology Research Group, The University of Sydney

24/07/2025

🚜🌧 Marge, the rains are 'ere! 🐌🐾

This week, our team returned from another field trip in the NSW Southern Tablelands, where we’re investigating some of the region’s most pressing parasite challenges. From mapping liver fluke risk through longitudinal snail surveillance, to better understanding how kangaroos and farm dogs contribute to pasture contamination and hydatid disease transmission, our multi-pronged approach is shedding light on both emerging risks and effective management strategies.

Importantly, this trip came just as widespread rainfall and even snow are forecast to bring long-awaited relief to drought-stricken parts of southeastern Australia 🌧️⛄️. After months of dry, cracked paddocks, the recent rain has farmers - and livestock - breathing a sigh of relief. But for parasites like liver fluke, which depend on aquatic snails to complete their life cycle, these weather events could trigger an increase in transmission risk. With our drone Bridget capturing incredible footage of landscape changes across sites, we're documenting in real time how water availability shapes host-parasite interactions on farms.

Joining us on this trip was Dr. Kath Muscat and DVM3 Research & Enquiry student Lynnette Leong, who is leading our farmer survey on hydatid disease awareness. Originally from Singapore and interested in pursuing a career in mixed practice, this was Lynnette’s first time on a working farm outside the university setting. She jumped right in - assisting with snail collection and gaining firsthand insights into the complexity (and beauty!) of livestock production systems here in regional NSW.

Stay tuned for more updates from the field as we continue our work alongside producers to build more sustainable, evidence-based parasite control strategies 🧬🌿

Australian Society for Parasitology Liver fluke in Australian livestock Veterinary Sciences, University of Sydney

14/07/2025

🐌🔬 Post-conference perks!

Following the Australian Society for Parasitology annual conference held in Melbourne two weeks ago, our Honours student Priscilla Huynh stayed on in Victoria to spend a week in Neil Young's lab at The University of Melbourne - an opportunity made possible through her Australian Wool Education Trust (AWET) scholarship.

During her time there, Priscilla was privileged to work alongside a team of snail experts including postdoctoral researcher Dr Tana Sukee, PhD student Zheyu Chen, Senior Research Fellow Dr Anson Koehler, and Dr Sunita Sumanam. Under their guidance, she received advanced training in morphological identification of liver fluke intermediate snail hosts, and may have even fallen in love with their lab's thriving snail colonies! 🐌❤️

In addition to hands-on ID work, Priscilla also processed DNA from snails collected in the NSW Southern Tablelands as part of her Honours project, which is focused on understanding the seasonality, diversity and abundance of these critical intermediate hosts.

We’re so grateful to our collaborators Liver fluke in Australian livestock for their support and to AWET for making this experience possible. Stay tuned for more updates on Priscilla’s work in this space!

08/07/2025

Our travelling team of parasitologists were away again last week, this time in Melbourne for the 2025 Australian Society for Parasitology (ASP) conference!

AVBS Honours students Olivia Kelly, Priscilla Huynh, and Chloe Burden each took to the national stage to present their research for the first time. Olivia tackled levamisole resistance in Teladorsagia circumcincta using nemabiome metabarcoding, Chloe introduced her project exploring the role of macropods in liver fluke transmission, and Priscilla shared her work on the seasonality, diversity, and abundance of liver fluke intermediate snail hosts in the NSW Southern Tablelands. All three were supported by ASP Student Travel Grants, with Olivia and Priscilla also awarded AWET Honours Research Scholarships.

Emily presented her statewide worm resistance dashboard, Jan showcased Phoebe Rivory’s headline-making research on Angiostrongylus cantonensis and provided updates on Thomas Stocker’s hookworm project, and along with presenting updates from her various Fasciola projects, Nichola co-led a fasciolosis session with colleagues from the The University of Melbourne.

Highlights included the Women in Parasitology mentoring session, winning student trivia, rounding out the conference with a dinner at the State Library, and Priscilla scoring a NEB LEGO set! She’s now staying on in Melbourne for hands-on snail ID training with our Liver fluke in Australian livestock collaborators.

A huge thanks to ASP and AWET for supporting our students and science. 🧬🐌🧫

26/06/2025

🎉 Hot off the press! Congratulations to our brilliant 2024 DVM3 Research & Enquiry student, Simran Vyas (Simmy), whose work has just been published in the Australian Veterinary Journal! 🥳

In her project, Simmy analysed five years of diagnostic data from the NSW Department of Primary Industries’ EMAI laboratory to map liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica) infection in cattle and sheep across NSW. These are the first species-specific maps produced in over 50 years, and they offer valuable tools to help farmers, veterinarians and industry diagnose infection, guide treatment choices, and prioritise research investment. They also provide a baseline for future studies looking at the impacts of climate change on fluke distribution.

💡 It’s humbling to see Simmy’s maps alongside some of the original parasite distribution maps from the early 20th century, created during the era of Clunies Ross, Robert Seddon, and Joe Boray. Many of these early observations were surprisingly accurate — and it’s exciting to see how modern diagnostics and big data are helping us build on this legacy. 🧬

While this study focused on data from a single diagnostic lab, we’re now working closely with collaborators at the University of Melbourne, Meat & Livestock Australia, and Animal Health Australia to expand this work nationally. Through abattoir surveillance, we aim to update Australia’s liver fluke distribution records and generate climate risk maps for the Eastern states where liver fluke remains endemic.

🖼️ Simmy popped in this week to proudly pin her paper to our wall of publications — an awesome achievement for a DVM3 student and hopefully just the first of many!

📄 Read the open access paper here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/avj.13465


Australian Society for Parasitology Liver fluke in Australian livestock Veterinary Sciences, University of Sydney The University of Melbourne Dawbuts

24/06/2025

🎓 Big congratulations to Dr Phoebe Rivory, who was officially awarded her PhD last week! Her research on the emerging parasite Angiostrongylus cantonensis - better known as rat lungworm - has made headlines across the country this week and so we thought we'd educate our amazing followers about the risks and things that can be done to avoid infection. 📰🐛

Rat lungworm disease is a serious condition that affects both humans and dogs, and Phoebe’s PhD sheds light on why cases are increasing in pets across Sydney and Brisbane. Using molecular diagnostics on over 180 dog cases, her work shows a strong link between recent rainfall and spikes in infections - an important insight in our changing climate.

🐶 Worried about your dog? Dogs become infected by eating slugs or snails, or from drinking water contaminated with tiny larvae. To help reduce the risk:
✅ Avoid leaving pet water bowls outside, or clean them thoroughly and often - especially if you ever spot a drowned slug or snail inside!
✅ Don’t let dogs play with or eat snails and slugs (this is easier said than done!).
✅ Keep an eye on high-risk periods, especially after long wet spells in autumn.

For people, infection is extremely rare but can be devastating. Many Australians will remember the case of Sam Ballard, the young man who became severely disabled and later died after eating a slug as a dare. 🐌 Please - wash your veggies, supervise kids in the garden, and never eat slugs or snails.

Phoebe’s work is a brilliant example of One Health research connecting human, animal, and environmental health to keep us all safer. We're so proud of her and can't wait to see where her post-PhD journey takes her. 🌿🔬🐾

📖 Read her latest research in The Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaf173

📺 Catch her story on the ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-17/rat-lungworm-disease-spike-dog-infections/105408304

Australian Society for Parasitology University Veterinary Teaching Hospital Sydney Veterinary Sciences, University of Sydney University of Sydney

Researchers say it's important to keep dogs away from slugs and snails, and stop them from eating them.

13/06/2025

🚨 Still time to have your say! 🚨
If you’re a NSW livestock producer with working dogs, we’d love to hear from you. One of our brilliant DVM3 students is running a short, anonymous survey as part of a project funded by the Australian Wool Education Trust (AWET).

🧠 Your insights will help us understand how farmers manage the risk of hydatid disease and develop better resources to support on-farm health and working dog management.

🕒 It only takes 15–20 minutes, and your response could make a real difference.
📣 Know someone who might be eligible? Please share the link below!

👉 https://redcap.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=MRYPC8DRPMDF3TNT



Australian Society for Parasitology The Land Dawbuts Primary Industries and Regional Development

30/05/2025

100 Years of Snails: Returning to the Field with New Eyes

This month, a dusty cupboard in the parasitology lab revealed an unexpected treasure — a meticulously preserved collection of freshwater snail specimens dating back nearly a century. Carefully labelled and stored in rows of specimen jars, the snails represent species from across the globe — from Southeast Asia to South Africa — but several were collected much closer to home: the NSW Southern Tablelands.

Remarkably, this is the same region where researchers from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science are currently conducting a Schnackenberg bequest-funded study on the intermediate hosts of Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke), a parasitic disease of livestock that continues to impose significant economic and welfare burdens across Australia.

“Finding specimens from the areas we’re now sampling was surreal,” says Dr Nichola Calvani, who leads the project in collaboration with researchers at the University of Melbourne Liver fluke in Australian livestock. “It’s like the past has handed us a benchmark.”

Among the specimens was a jar of tiny snails, carefully collected and labelled “Goulburn, Rapid Stream, 19.8.25” — almost exactly 100 years ago. This period marked a foundational era for parasitology in Australia. Researchers such as Ian Clunies Ross and Gordon Seddon were just beginning to map the complex life cycle of liver fluke in Australia, including its dependence on specific freshwater snail species as intermediate hosts. Field expeditions in the 1920s and 30s were instrumental in building the country’s first parasite and vector reference collections. This work was later continued in the McMaster Building of the then CSIR by Dr Joe Boray - the world's most well-recognised liver fluke scientist known for his foundatational work on F. hepatica epidemiology and control, including the development and commercialisation of Triclabendazole - the only drug still on the market with high efficacy against both adult and juvenile parasites.

While these trailblazing parasitologists relied on hand-drawn sketches and morphological identification, today’s team brings a different set of tools into the field. Drones are used to map wetland habitats and pinpoint likely snail microhabitats. Collected snails are then preserved in RNAlater and identified using molecular barcoding to resolve cryptic species and track shifts in host diversity and abundance across seasons.

Students are also playing a key role in the reinvigoration of liver fluke research in Australia. AVBS student Priscilla Huynh is leading an honours project mapping the current diversity, abundance and seasonality of liver fluke snails in the NSW Southern Tablelands, while AVBS placement student Adina Van Rysewyk is busy in the lab assisting in morphological identification, both of whom are helping to refine contemporary keys and reference data for native and invasive snails in the region with our collaborators at The University of Melbourne.

The rediscovered specimens are more than historical artefacts. They provide a rare opportunity to validate century-old species records and examine how key host populations may have shifted in response to climate change, land use, and the introduction of invasive species. “In many ways, this is a story about continuity,” says Calvani. “We’re returning to the same landscapes, asking some of the same questions — but with new technologies, and new urgency.”

As the project progresses, the team will share their findings with local farmers, industry groups, and veterinary students, helping to translate this research into improved strategies for parasite control. But for now, the century-old snails serve as a striking reminder: sometimes the best way forward is to look back.

15/05/2025

Another day, another survey!

🐾 Do you own working dogs on a farm in NSW? 🐶🐑
Thanks to funding we have received from the Australian Wool Education Trust (AWET), one of our DVM3 R&E students is running a short, anonymous survey to learn more about how NSW farmers manage the risk of hydatid disease on their properties. Your input will help shape better resources to support healthy farms and working dogs across the region.

💻 The survey takes just 15–20 minutes and is completely anonymous.
📢 Please share with other NSW farmers who might be interested—every response counts!

👉 https://redcap.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=MRYPC8DRPMDF3TNT


Australian Society for Parasitology Australian Canine Research Foundation Veterinary Sciences, University of Sydney University Veterinary Teaching Hospital Sydney

08/05/2025

🐾🧫 A huge thank you to Australia's leading hydatid expert, David Jenkins, who joined us this week from Charles Sturt University to assist with macropod dissections as part of our DVM3 R&E and AVBS Honours projects!

Thanks to support from the SSVS Schnakenberg Bequest, we’re investigating the role of wildlife in parasite transmission and exploring ways to improve parasite control on Australian farms. Our incredible students—Zofia Rydzewska, Lynnette Leong, Chloe Burden, and Priscilla Huynh—are working on complementary projects focused on hydatid disease and liver fluke epidemiology in the NSW Southern Tablelands.

We were also lucky to have placement students Adina Van Rysewyk and Bailey Thompson join us, both of whom provided vital support in the lab. Special thanks to our pathology team and residents for enabling access to our world-class necropsy suite.

It was a fantastic week of science, collaboration, and hands-on parasitology—stay tuned for updates from the field later this month! 💪🔬🦘

📸 Pictured: Nichola Calvani, Zofia Rydewska, Lynnette Leong, David Jenkins, Priscilla Huynh, and Adina Van Rysewyk after a long day in the Necropsy Suite. Photo taken by Bailey Thompson

13/04/2025

Do you have a problem with liver fluke on your farm? We want to hear from you!! Complete the survey in the link below.

The aim of this questionnaire is to collect information on liver fluke control practices used by livestock farmers in Australia. This study is part of a larger project, "Studies on flukes in Australian livestock". The results of this survey, together with results from other studies in the project, w...

20/12/2024

It's the last day of the working year, but if you thought we were done then you don't know us very well!

Yesterday, we congratulated the newly-minted Dr. Rose Power on the submission of her final thesis chapter, which we hope to share with you all in the new year!

Today, however, Phoebe Rivory submitted her thesis on Rat lungworm (Angiostrongylus cantonensis) in Australia. Phoebe is our THIRD PhD student to submit this year, marking a huge year for everyone in the lab! Over the last few years, Phoebe has expertly woven together multiple aspects of rat lungworm to reveal new insights into the disease along Australia's east coast. Her thesis is a whopping NINE CHAPTERS, two of which she submitted for publication earlier this week.

Emily is busy wrapping up an interesting review article on molecuar diagnostics of livestock nematodes, Nichola is polishing off two student manuscripts for submission in early January, Thomas is busy working on hookworms, and Jan is... always up to something.

After an enormous year, we're keen for a rest and are excited for what the new year will bring. We wish all our colleagues, students, friends and followers a happy Christmas and New Year. We'll see you again in January!

08/12/2024

🌟🏃‍♂️🎄 Celebrating 5 Years of Running for a Cause! 🎄🏃‍♀️🌟

For the past five years, Jan Šlapeta and Mark Westman have been inspiring our incredible vet school community to lace up for the annual Christmas Charity Run - supporting Beyond Blue and raising awareness for mental health, a deeply important issue in the veterinary profession.

This year, we marked our fifth anniversary with an ambitious challenge: a 100km "Hamster Wheel" (i.e. running laps around Oval 1, where each lap was 430m)

The Challenge:
Participants ran or walked laps of the oval throughout the day, with each lap counting towards our goal. Even furry friends joined in! Emily's dog Flo gave it her all, with each lap counting as ½ lap (because, hey, they’ve got four legs 🐾). Although our youngest participant was only 4 months old, this was her second year participating!

The Outcome?
Our community came together, showing incredible spirit and teamwork. Collectively, we completed 320 laps, smashing our original goal of 100km with a total distance of 137.6km!

Why This Matters:
Mental health is a critical issue in the veterinary community. The pressures of the profession, coupled with the challenges of everyday life, can take a heavy toll. Starting in 2020 during the pandemic, events like this remind us of the power of connection and collective effort in supporting one another and raising vital funds for Beyond Blue, a charity doing amazing work to provide mental health support.

We’re Almost There!
We’ve raised $1,955 of our $2,000 goal. With your help, we can hit this milestone and make an even bigger impact.

👉 Donate here: https://team.beyondblue.org.au/t/the-2024-3-5-10-km-vet-fun-walk-run-for-mental-health

Thank you to everyone who participated, donated, or cheered us on. What diabolical plan will Jan & Mark come up with next year??