Research Project

Supervisors: Dr Franco H. Falcone (95%), Dr G. Sebastiaan Winkler (5%)

Despite major advances in the medical diagnosis of the vast majority of pathogenic organisms, there are still problems with immunodiagnosis of Echinococcus spp. and Schistosoma spp. infection, due to serological cross-reactivity with other species of cestodes and trematodes, respectively. Furthermore, there is a lack of serological techniques able to diagnose echinococcal infection in the initial stages of the disease.

This study focuses on developing a new method based on detection of parasite-specific IgE using reporter cell lines which can report IgE crosslinking with luciferase or fluorescent protein expression, and parasitic allergens produced using cell-free translation systems. 

Our hope is that such a technology will enable higher specificity and sensitivity for diagnosis of Echinococcus and Schistosoma infection, and ideally would have the ability to discriminate between alveolar and cystic echinococcosis.