I'm a researcher passionate about understanding parasites of veterinary importance—how they grow, survive, and interact with their animal hosts. My work focuses on culturing these parasites in vitro to study them in controlled lab settings, which helps us unravel the complex ways they affect animal health. Within the current projects my collegues and I explore how parasites use extracellular vesicles, which are used for cell communication in all kingdoms of lives, to manipulate their host's immune system. These vesicles carry a rich cargo of proteins, RNA, and other molecules that seem to play a key role in how parasites evade immune defenses. We’re now diving deeper into what’s actually inside these vesicles and how this cargo influences the host response. Ultimately, our goal is to better understand parasite biology and host–parasite interactions, with the long-term aim of improving animal health and developing new strategies for disease control.
