The Known Knowns, the Known Unknowns, and Predictions of the Unknown Unknowns of Vector-Borne Diseases in a Changing World

Insects transmit parasites and pathogens to humans and other vertebrates. Malaria, Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, and Lyme disease all are transmitted by arthropod vectors.

What happens to parasites once they are ingested? How do they find their way around the insect? What happens within the insect vector after it takes up a bloodmeal containing parasites or pathogens? How does the insect vector recognize the parasite? How does the insect activate its immune system to eliminate the parasite? How does this immune response kill some parasites but not others? How does the parasite circumvent or evade the insect immune response and be transmitted to another human?

The interactions between these organisms is based on the nutritional and overall health status of vector and parasite. Other major questions include the following: How will climate change affect habitat and range extension of vectors? How will this affect the development of parasites within vectors? Will fitter vectors transmit more parasites? Will weaker vectors succumb to parasites? Will climate change allow for expansion north and south to new countries and new susceptible hosts? Will climate change allow expansion within an endemic country to new altitudes in the same region?

These unknown unknowns are driving the predictions of what will become the reality of disease transmission in the new era.

Speaker

Carl Lowenberger is a Canada research chair in parasites and vectors of disease. He has used his degrees in entomology (University of Guelph), medical entomology (Simon Fraser University), and parasitology (McGill University) to develop a research program around insects that transmit parasites to humans.

He moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison initially as a post-doctoral fellow and then as a faculty member. In 2002, he was appointed to the Department of Biological Sciences as a CRC in parasites and vectors of disease. He is a scholar of the Michel Smith Foundation for Health Research, as well as an associate member of the Centre for Forensic Research (Criminology) and the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at SFU.

Carl’s research is both field- and lab-oriented, and he tries to use lab studies to predict what is happening in the field, evaluate predictions in the field, and return to the lab to modify predictions. As such, Carl collaborates extensively with researchers in Colombia, Mexico, and Costa Rica on Dengue transmission, and in Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala on Chagas Disease. He has also worked previously in Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico on malaria and in Egypt on lymphatic filariasis.

Partners and Sponsors

A David and Cecilia Ting Endowment 2011-2012 Film and Lecture Series

Presented by the Centre for Coastal Science and Management and Continuing Studies in Science and Environment at Simon Fraser Universit.

Hosted by the Faculty of Environment & Faculty of Science Simon Fraser University