The 1st Parasitologia International Virtual Conference

South East Technological University (SETU), Waterford, Ireland;Dr Denise O’Meara is a Lecturer and Researcher in Molecular Ecology at South East Technological University (SETU), Ireland. Her research focuses on the development and application of molecular approaches to biological surveillance, with particular interests in wildlife, vectors, invasive species and infectious disease. She has worked extensively on non-invasive genetic monitoring, DNA barcoding, species-specific PCR and qPCR, population genetics and environmental DNA. Her recent research includes molecular surveillance of mosquitoes and Culicoides biting midges in Ireland, including the development of molecular tools to support vector identification and monitoring. She has also contributed to research on wildlife populations, invasive species and wildlife–livestock disease systems. Her current interests focus on how approaches developed within molecular ecology can support more integrated surveillance across biodiversity, animal health, biosecurity and public health within a One Health framework.

Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic;Dr. Julius Lukeš, PhD is principal investigator at the Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of South Bohemia. He earned RNDr (Rerum Naturalium Doctor) from Charles University, and PhD from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Czech Academy of Sciences, University of Amsterdam, University of California, Riverside, and visiting scientist at the UCLA, and a senior fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He is a member of the Czech Learned Society, a fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology, the European Academy of Microbiology, the AAAS, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the NAS. He has been President of the International Society for Evolutionary Protistology, and is President elect of the International Society of Protistologists. Awards include prize of the Czech Minister of Education, and J.G. Mendel Medal for Achievements in Natural Sciences. Dr. Lukeš’s primary interest is functional analysis of a wide range of proteins of the kinetoplastid parasite Trypanosoma brucei, the free-living flagellate Diplonema papillatum, and few other protists. He is also interested in the evolution of the mitochondrion, in the phylogeny of unicellular eukaryotes with focus on the eukaryotic supergroup Discoba, in RNA editing and the kinetoplast DNA, in the role of bacterial endosymbionts in protists, in heme and iron-sulfur cluster metabolism, as well as in the host-parasite relationships in general. He likes to popularize science for the general public.

School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;