Tales of Water and Sand: When a Molecular Biologist Gets Out of the Lab
Monday, June 2 | 3:10-4:20 p.m.
Wriston Auditorium
What makes an organism successful and competitive in an environment? What is needed for an animal to be an efficient vector for disease transmission? What is the role of the immune system in these processes?
To answer some of these questions, Dr. Maria Castillo’s (New Mexico State University) laboratory group focuses on two topics: the ecoimmunology of the freshwater snail Physela cuta in relation to its invasive capacity and the desert-adapted kissing bug Triatoma rubida as a trypanosome vector of Chagas disease in New Mexico.