Parasitism is a symbiotic relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism, trophically transmitted parasitism, vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation.
Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question but by their way of life. This means it forms a synthesis of other disciplines, and draws on techniques from fields such as cell biology, bioinformatics, biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, genetics, evolution and ecology.
Leo Margolis, was a Canadian parasitologist. He was a pioneer in the use of parasites for identification of Pacific Ocean fish stocks. His discoveries became a crucial point in negotiations over pacific salmon fisheries, as it could now be determined where each individual fish spawned, in the rivers of Canada or the United States.
Hugh McLeod Gordon, was a pioneering Australian veterinary scientist and parasitologist.
Chhitar Mal Gupta is an Indian molecular biologist and academic, known for researches on transbilayer phospholipid asymmetry in biological membranes., drug targeting in parasitic diseases and characterization of structure and function of Leishmania actin and actin binding proteins. He is former director of the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow and the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh. A Distinguished Biotechnology Fellow and Distinguished Biotechnology Research Professor of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, he is an elected fellow of The World Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India and the National Academy of Medical Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1985, for his contributions to biological sciences.
The European Federation of Parasitologists (EFP) is a non-profit scientific international organization, founded in November 1966 by Witold Stefański who was its first president. It gathers around 30 national societies of parasitology of European countries. The original bylaws were published in the International Journal for Parasitology in 1979. Hundreds of European scientists are affiliated to the EFP through their national societies. The EFP is a member of the World Federation of Parasitologists. The EFP aims at helping human or animal health authorities in fighting any emerging parasitic problem.
Yevgeny Nikanorovich Pavlovsky was a Soviet zoologist, entomologist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939), the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944), honorary member of the Tajik Academy of Sciences (1951), and a lieutenant-general of the Red Army Medical Service in World War II.
Chetan Eknath Chitnis is an Indian scientist in the field of malaria research. He is the head of the Malaria Parasite Biology and Vaccines Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2009) as well as Indian National Science Academy (2014). He received the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in 2004 and the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences 2010. Chitnis is the former Principal Investigator of the malaria research group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi.
Elvio Herbert Sadun was an Italian-American parasitologist. Educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University, he conducted most of his research as Chief of Medical Zoology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (1959–1973). A prolific scientist, he wrote or edited 3 books and 313 peer-reviewed articles in the fields of immunology and tropical medicine, and is known for the first application of fluorescent antibody imaging in the diagnosis of parasitic diseases.
Founded in 1924, the American Society of Parasitologists comprises a diverse group of about 700 scientists from academia, industry, and government involved in the study and teaching of the scientific discipline of parasitology. Society members contribute to the development of parasitology as a discipline, as well as to primary research in behavior, biochemistry, ecology, immunology, medicine, molecular biology, physiology, systematics, and other related fields of science.
Vinod Prakash Sharma was an Indian malariologist and entomologist, known for his work in vector biology and bioenvironmental control of malaria. Recipient of many awards, including the Padma Shri, he was again honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.
William Cecil Campbell is an Irish biologist and parasitologist with American citizenship, known for his work in discovering a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworms, for which he was jointly awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He helped to discover a class of drugs called ivermectins, whose derivatives have been shown to have "extraordinary efficacy" in treating River blindness and Lymphatic filariasis, among other parasitic diseases affecting animals and humans. Campbell worked at the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research 1957–1990, and is currently a research fellow emeritus at Drew University.
Veena Tandon is an Indian parasitologist, academic and a NASI senior scientist at Biotech Park, Lucknow. She is a former professor of zoology at the North Eastern Hill University and serves as the chief instigator for the North-East India Helminth Parasite Information Database. She is known for her researches on worm infections afflicting the animals of food value and is the author of two books and several articles on parasitology.
Alok Bhattacharya is an Indian parasitologist, academic and a professor at the School of Life Sciences of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He chairs the Biotechnology Information System Network (BITSNET) as well as the Life Sciences Expert Committee of FIST program of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy and is known for his studies on Entamoeba histolytica and species-specific calcium binding protein and its gene.
Shyam Swarup Agarwal was an Indian geneticist, immunologist and the director of Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI-MS), Lucknow. A former director of the Advanced Center for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) at the Tata Memorial Centre, he was the pioneer of medical genetics and clinical immunology education in India. Known for his researches in the fields of genetics and molecular biology, he was an Emeritus Professor of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, and an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies, namely, the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 1986.
Gopal Dhinakar Raj is an Indian veterinary scientist, an academic and the project director of the Translational Research Platform for Veterinary Biologicals, a partnership program between the Department of Biotechnology and the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. Known for the development of diagnostic test kits for animal and poultry diseases such as Leptospirosis and Egg drop syndrome, Raj is a member of the DBT Task Force on Animal Biotechnology. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2007.
Robert Poulin is an evolutionary ecologist specialising in the ecology of parasitism. He is a professor of zoology at the University of Otago.
Paul J Brindley is an Australian parasitologist, microbiologist, and helminthologist. He is professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University.
Robert Lloyd Rausch was an American parasitologist, mammalogist, and veterinary physician.
Daniel O. Griffin, MD. PhD., is an American physician-scientist who is a research scholar in Infectious Diseases and Immunology.
