Veterinary Parasitology Research Group, The University of Sydney

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??

06/12/2024

A big shoutout to our PhD student, Phoebe Rivory, for her outstanding exit seminar yesterday!

Phoebe’s thesis, “Neural Angiostrongyliasis in Australia: Who and What is to Blame?”, takes us on a fascinating journey through nine interconnected chapters—each a vital piece of the puzzle. 🧩🐕🐒🐀

For those of us in the para lab, these chapters are individually well-known, but hearing the full story come together was an absolute delight!

Adding to the excitement, her two final chapters were submitted to journals just this week—so watch this space! 📝👀

We couldn’t be prouder of her achievements and are excited to see her submit at the end of the month. Please join us in celebrating Phoebe’s incredible work and all the effort that brought her to this milestone! 👏🎓🎉

16/09/2024

🎉 Huge congratulations to our PhD student, Rose Power, for her impressive exit seminar presentation last week! 🌟 Rose guided us through a captivating historical journey, revealing that canine heartworms may have a far deeper history with canids than previously believed. She also stressed the importance of developing local resistance markers as heartworms here differ from those abroad!

As Rose heads into the final couple of weeks of writing her thesis, she remains cool, calm, and collected — a true inspiration to our students. We couldn’t be prouder of her dedication and hard work!

Wishing her the best of luck as she wraps up this exciting chapter — soon to be Dr. Power💪🎓

Please join us in celebrating her fantastic work and cheering her on!

02/09/2024

Nichola Calvani, Emily Francis, PhD students Rose Power and Phoebe Rivory, along with AVBS honours student Chelsie Uthayakumar represented team para from Veterinary Sciences, University of Sydney at the annual Australian Society for Parasitology conference. The theme of this years' conference was "Parasites in the Pacific" and was held in conjunction with the New Zealand Society for Parasitology and the 7th International Conference for Anaerobic Protists in beautiful Auckland, New Zealand.

While Jan held down the fort back on home soil, the team did a fantastic job showcasing the diversity of research conducted in our lab; from heartbreaking heartworms to pesky rat lungworm, their talks were engaging, entertaining, and visually spectacular (although, we might be biased)!

A special shoutout to Chelsie for doing an amazing job presenting her honours project work to date to an audience larger than our lab for the first time ever. No one knew she had never been to a conference, let alone presented, before. Well done Chelsie! Chelsie was supported by an ASP student travel grant as well as an Australian Wool Education Trust scholarship.

It was a fabulous opportunity to catch up with old colleagues and friends, while making new and lasting connections. Emily even won the NEB lab lego set!

Now, it's back to the lab as PhD students Rose and Phoebe finish writing up their theses, Emily returns to teaching, Chelsie cracks on with lab work, and Nichola does... something with liver fluke. More about our next adventures soon!

13/06/2024

It’s official… 🥁

Congratulations to Dr Emily Francis who has successfully completed her PhD! 👏👩‍🎓

Emily has been an integral part of our lab these past few years, and we are so proud of all she has achieved. Last week, we had the pleasure of attending Emily’s ‘Exit seminar’, where she presented an overview of her thesis, titled: “Innovative approaches for gastrointestinal nematode identification and resistance surveillance: Transitioning molecular diagnostics from the confines of research to the expanse of the field”. And as always, she crushed it! 💯

But it’s not goodbye just yet, as Emily is currently lecturing our DVM and AVBS students with Professor Jan Slapeta. So stay tuned as she continues her research on livestock gastrointestinal nematodes! 🐑 🐮 🪱

19/05/2024

🌏 Nichola was overseas again recently, bringing back enriching experiences from Laos and Vietnam!

In Vietnam, a decade since her last visit, Nichola planned to meet her colleague Dung Thi Bui. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen family matters, they were unable to see each other at the last minute. Despite this, Dung’s hospitality was beyond compare, allowing Nichola to stay at her home for a week. During this time, a neighboring medical student ensured Nichola experienced the best of Ha Noi, exploring local markets and savoring delicious street food. 🇻🇳

Laos welcomed Nichola with heartwarming reunions. She reconnected with old friends and colleagues who hosted a memorable dinner of all her favorite local dishes. It was wonderful to see how much had changed since her last visit in 2019. One former student is now married with an adorable baby, and another colleague, who was pregnant when Nichola last visited, now has a lovely young family. 🇱🇦

Nichola also delivered 20 kg of essential donations to the Rescue House Luang Prabang, a local dog and cat rescue organization. These donations included much-needed worming tablets (courtesy of Vetoquinol), medications, diagnostic tests, food, toys, treats, and bowls. Recently, the rescue held a worming, vaccination, and testing day at Pha-O temple, home to 28 dogs and 6 cats. Veterinary students from Souphanouvong University participated, gaining valuable hands-on experience while helping care for the animals on the day. 🐾

The Rescue House Luang Prabang does incredible work, and we encourage our followers to support them by visiting their page and considering a donation. 💖

Nichola is looking forward to returning again soon to continue working on important human and animal health issues in the region! 🌟

19/05/2024

We're excited to try the latest ASP VR tool!

26/02/2024

Nichola, Emily and some of our new DVM and AVBS honours students for 2024 had an early start last week as they met at the McMaster building at 5 am for a road trip out to Gunning, NSW for a farmer breakfast to kick off Nichola’s ‘Beyond Suspicion’ project. This project, funded by the SSVS Late Dorothy Minchin Bequest, aims to investigate a suspected 230% increase in fluke prevalence in the region over the last two years. Nichola and Emily had 45 sheep breeders and livestock producers on the edge of their seats as they gave an update on gastrointestinal parasite diagnosis, seasonality, and drug resistance. Stay tuned for updates throughout the year as we see our farmer-focused research activities become reality!

12/02/2024

Rose & Dung’s Vietnam adventure! ✈️

Guess who Rose (one of our PhD students) had the pleasure of meeting during her recent trip to Vietnam? None other than Dung Thi Bui, a Principal Researcher at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).

While she was in Hanoi, Rose had the incredible opportunity to tour the VAST with Dung and learn about her research on zoonotic parasitic diseases 🪱 For lunch, Dung introduced Rose to Bún chả (which she claims was a life changing experience!!!) 😋

Rose then got the chance to dive into the fascinating exhibits at the Vietnam National Museum of Nature, which was right on campus! From fossils, to artworks, to beautiful butterfly displays, it was a nice journey through plant and animal evolution 🦋 🦕 🌎

But the story doesn’t end there – Dung generously took Rose in again for a lovely home-cooked meal with her family. Not only did Rose learn the delicate art of making fried spring rolls, but she also soaked in the traditions and excitement surrounding the upcoming Tết holidays (Lunar New Year) 🏮🎇

Thanks for showing Rose around, Dung! You’ll have to come visit us here in Sydney, Australia sometime 🐨✈️

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! 🐉 🧧 🌸

19/01/2024

One of our brilliant PhD students, Emily, has just clicked the final ‘submit’ button for her thesis this week. Huge congratulations to her! 🥳 The big boss (Jan) reflects on her journey – read below.

“I met Emily a long time ago, or at least it feels like it. Anything before COVID-19 is long ago by default. Emily has just submitted her PhD thesis, which is a huge milestone for her, but feels like a bit of a milestone for me as well. Being a PhD supervisor is a tricky role; all PhD candidates are unique, so the “one size fits all” slogan does not apply.

Receiving a PhD title is by no means the destination, the whole thing is often just the beginning. The goal is not only to become someone who has something important to say, but someone who does so with composure, clarity, rigorous scientific methods, and justification. PhDs should also be wise and have a well-calibrated ‘bullsh*t detector’. The good news is that Emily ticks all of these boxes!

Emily joined our lab as a PhD student 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but worked with us long before that as an undergraduate honours student and even earlier as an “Lab Disease Investigation” student during her Animal and Veterinary Bioscience degree. She comes from a rather remote NSW farm, and so is well acquainted with parasites. The challenging management of livestock parasites is what resonated with Emily. How do farmers get advice about parasite management? Of course, they ask their local stocking agent... but do we really trust what they say?

So, Emily accepted her challenge: give the farmer the data and access to the tools needed to track the diversity and burden of parasites in their herds, whilst simultaneously monitoring for drug-resistance.
This might sound easy, but for context let me give you an example of how this process can acutally be quite complex – and lengthy – before we cut to the chase. It takes weeks to identify which parasites are lurking in your sheep or cattle – and it takes even longer to determine if the anthelmintics will even work! Often, the samples also need to travel hundreds of kilometers. Emily has done us proud and brought to life a proof-of-principle workflow that reduces this lengthy process to be reduced to just a few days. With a little bit of refining, this process can easily be performed next-door to the farmer at stocking agencies.

While Emily is awaiting the examiners’ verdict, let us share her work, much of which is already in the public domain.

Congrats Emily, I am very proud. What a beginning!”

🪱💉A mixed amplicon metabarcoding and sequencing approach for surveillance of drug resistance to levamisole and benzimidazole in Haemonchus spp. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2023.07.002

🧬A new diagnostic approach to fast-track and increase the accessibility of gastrointestinal nematode identification from faeces: FECPAK(G2) egg nemabiome metabarcoding. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2022.01.002

🐐Refugia or reservoir? Feral goats and their role in the maintenance and circulation of benzimidazole-resistant gastrointestinal nematodes on shared pastures https://doi.org/10.1017/s0031182023000380

18/01/2024

The USA hookworm story from down under! 📢

Our Master's student, Tom, has just published a paper in Veterinary Parasitology, and we're eager to share some insights with all of you. Tom's research focuses on hookworms – those blood-sucking worms that commonly afflict our canine companions. If you've ever administered a "wormer" to your dog, you've likely targeted these pesky parasites. At Sydney Uni, we even have a jar full of these tiny creatures in our museum (see pic).

The story began last year when a Canadian research group from the University of Calgary uncovered a remarkable level of resistance to common anthelmintics across the U.S. dog population. Intrigued by their findings, we engaged in a conversation with Tom.

According to Tom, "It turns out the original authors didn't fully exploit the data, so we decided to recycle ♻️ it." The Canadian group focused on the major hookworm in dogs, known as the canine hookworm (scientifically labelled Ancylostoma caninum). They employed a 'shotgun' genetic analysis that had the potential to see beyond just this species of hookworm. Besides the canine hookworm, there are at least two to three other hookworms in North America and most other countries around the world.

Tom explains, "These wriggly creatures 🪱 are causing more trouble in the USA, and identifying the species is crucial. Analysing the genetic codes 🧬 in the data, we identified not just one, but four hookworm species. Each of these four can lead to different health issues."

Were there any surprises? While we expected a substantial contribution from other hookworms, that wasn't the case. Out of over 300 samples, only a handful exhibited a minor presence of hookworm species other than the canine hookworm.

Let's hear more from Tom: "Surprisingly, we found a hookworm species typically associated with cats 🐱 in dog samples, probably because they enjoy snacking on cat p**p 💩." For those of you with dogs, this behaviour might sound familiar. The good news is that the cat hookworm in a dog is merely a harmless passenger, posing no threat or problems.

In summary, the contribution of hookworm species other than the canine hookworm in the U.S. dog population is quite minimal, contrary to common assumptions. What makes this research stand out is that it was conducted essentially for free, leveraging fully public data from GenBank (the repository for all publicly available genetic data) and employing straightforward yet clever bioinformatics methods.

Congratulations to Tom! 🎉

Check out Tom's paper: Thomas Stocker, Michael P. Ward, Jan Šlapeta (2024) Nationwide USA re-analysis of amplicon metabarcoding targeting β-tubulin isoform-1 reveals absence of benzimidazole resistant SNPs in Ancylostoma braziliense, Ancylostoma tubaeforme and Uncinaria stenocephala. Veterinary Parasitology, 110118. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0304-4017(24)00006-2

To read the Canadian work go here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011146