{"id":11408,"date":"2016-04-07T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T20:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/?p=11408"},"modified":"2016-04-07T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T20:21:07","slug":"parasite-research-sheds-light-on-what-future-may-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/2016\/04\/07\/parasite-research-sheds-light-on-what-future-may-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"Parasite research sheds light on what future may hold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Avelina<\/a>Avelina Espinosa<\/strong>
\nRoger Williams University<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssociate professor, biology<\/strong>
\nSURF program<\/a> mentor<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"weareriepscor-2\"<\/a>Avelina Espinosa\u2019s research takes her deep inside the gut, looking at a parasite ingested by people through either water or food.\u00a0The question, she says, is how would this parasite \u2014 Entamoeba<\/em> \u2014 respond to climate change?<\/p>\n

From her biomedical research\u00a0with the human pathogen, Espinosa says she knew the organisms communicated by excreting proteins. These single cell organisms can discriminate between relatives and non-relatives to maximize survival.<\/p>\n

Under the Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR grant, Espinosa\u2019s investigation focuses on the chemical signaling that takes place at the unicellular level and what transpires when there is environmental stress.<\/p>\n

Understanding the ecological interaction between different groups of microbes, the healthy versus the pathogenic ones, can bring better management of marine ecosystem health.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat we found was that amebas\u00a0do change and can grow better with higher acidity, higher salinity and higher temperature,\u201d she reports. \u201cSo, this suggests that if conditions change, we would have changes in infectious agents both for animal and human populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means, as conditions evolve \u2014 temperatures rise, levels of water acidity and salinity grow \u2014 they will affect the behavior of these single-celled organisms, which, in turn, may warrant a change in planning for and responding to disease.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to where the research might lead, Espinosa says understanding the ecological interaction between different groups of microbes, the healthy versus the pathogenic ones, can bring better management of marine ecosystem health. Greater insight also will allow science to naturally manage infectious disease rather than through drugs and compounds.<\/p>\n

Espinosa also is involved with RI EPSCoR\u2019s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program and weaves her work into her mentoring, training students as they assist with research, gain new skills, and explore the science. The exposure and the impact on students at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) are life changing, says Espinosa.<\/p>\n

For example, she cites Josh Leitao of the SURF 2013 class, who went onto earn a fellowship \u2014 one of 43 students nationwide \u2014\u00a0from the American Society of Microbiology.<\/p>\n

He received an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology<\/a> 2015 Award and the International Society of Protistologists<\/a> 2014 Award, also collecting \u201cBest Presentation About Single Cell Organisms.\u201d Leitao presented his research at the American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition<\/a> in Denver, Colorado, and other national meetings. And, he\u00a0has been accepted at Johns Hopkins for a Master’s Degree in microbiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mentorship is integrated with the research,\u201d Espinosa says. \u201cAt Roger Williams University, the approach we have is that we do the work, but the students are an essential part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story and photo by Amy Dunkle | RI NSF EPSCoR<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avelina Espinosa Roger Williams University Associate professor, biology SURF program mentor Avelina Espinosa\u2019s research takes her deep inside the gut, looking at a parasite ingested by people through either water or food.\u00a0The question, she says, is how would this parasite \u2014 Entamoeba \u2014 respond to climate change? From her biomedical research\u00a0with the human pathogen, Espinosa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21,1,63],"tags":[165,249,405,570,597],"class_list":["post-11408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","category-we-are-ri-epscor","tag-climate-change","tag-entamoeba","tag-microbes","tag-rhode-island-nsf-epscor","tag-roger-williams-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}