Hannah Guss / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe
Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by schistosome blood flukes that affects over 200 million worldwide(Weerakoon et al. 2015) . Global efforts to eradicate the disease have had substantial success in some endemic regions, while other regions lag in progress. Accordingly, regions of the world that have made progress towards elimination may provide key insight into the paths to success, and distinct challenges of eradicating the disease. China has previously achieved near elimination levels through intensive control regimes including mass administration of the anthelminthic drug Praziquantel yet continued to experience re-emergence of schistosomiasis as recently as the early 2000s(Wang et al. 2009). The factors that have enabled persistence and re-emergence despite otherwise low prevalence remain poorly understood. To address these questions, we analyze whole genome sequences of 270 archival schistosome miracidial genomes sampled from 63 human hosts across a network of villages in the mountainous region of China in 2007 immediately following reemergence. We use these data to estimate parasite population demography, genomic diversity, patterns of parasite relatedness, and worm burden per host to understand factors that may contribute to regional persistence and continued transmission.
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