{"id":101778,"date":"2015-04-23T09:05:59","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T13:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=101778"},"modified":"2015-05-08T10:33:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T14:33:01","slug":"of-scholars-and-tapeworms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/04\/of-scholars-and-tapeworms\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Scholars and Tapeworms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A new species of tapeworm described from Australia by Janine Caira and student Kirsten Jensen, showing the head-like scolex. (Image courtesy of Janine Caira)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

James Bernot \u201912 (CLAS), MS \u201915 can pinpoint the exact moment he realized that he was a scientist.<\/p>\n

The UConn biological sciences major had spent two of his college years studying parasites in the laboratory of Janine Caira, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and one of the world\u2019s foremost tapeworm biologists.<\/p>\n

Now, as a graduating senior, he stood in front of a room of scientists at the annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists in Anchorage, Alaska, and explained to the crowd his research discovering new species of tapeworms and their parasitic existence within the guts of smooth-hound sharks.<\/p>\n

He describes the experience in one word: empowering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suddenly realized that I knew this system better than anyone else in the room,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, I\u2019m a world expert on this small subject, and I\u2019m sharing new knowledge with people. And that makes me a scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernot is just one among hundreds of students who have passed through Caira\u2019s laboratory in the past 30 years. Many show up for the sharks, Caira says \u2013 \u201cwe get a lot of shark groupies,\u201d she jokes \u2013 but even when they realize the lab is all about parasites, they stay for the experience of discovery. They stay to become scientists.<\/p>\n

Necessary Knowledge<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the heart of training young scientists, says Caira, is the idea of fundamental research. Her laboratory focuses on the taxonomy, or the family trees, of tapeworms. Of the some 7,000 identified tapeworm species, about 1,000 live and evolve in the guts of sharks and rays, making them an ideal system to study the coevolution of parasites and their hosts.<\/p>\n

In the past five years alone, Caira and her students journeyed to the shores of Chile, Ecuador, Senegal, South Africa, Portugal, India, and Vietnam, where they collected sharks, often bycatch from local fishermen\u2019s boats. The researchers dissect the fish, pull out their tapeworms, and bring the parasites back to Caira\u2019s UConn laboratory.<\/p>\n

There they wait, preserved in jars, for a student like Bernot, or Carrie Fyler \u201909 Ph.D., to identify them.<\/p>\n

\"Carrie<\/a>
Carrie Fyler ’09 Ph.D.,dissects sharks on a beach in Senegal. (Photo courtesy of Janine Caira)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the field, you\u2019re out on a beach in the sun working for 10 hours each day \u2013 there\u2019s a very raw element to it,\u201d says Fyler. \u201cAnd then when you get back to the lab, you have your microscope and your slides, and you spend hours just drawing, looking, analyzing, and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students identify the tapeworms based on their characteristics, like their head-like scolex; their hook-like rostellum that attaches to their host\u2019s digestive tract; and their sections of proglottids, which they use to reproduce.<\/p>\n

Caira says that in her lab\u2019s collections, there are probably 200 undescribed species of tapeworms, ready to be discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re glorious,\u201d Caira says. \u201cTheir morphology is spectacular. And they\u2019re better taxonomists than we are. The tapeworms always tell us the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning about the habitat of a study organism in the field, and also spending time studying them in-depth in the laboratory, is the best way to develop a burgeoning scientist, Caira says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do fundamental research to learn about the world,\u201d she says. \u201cThe world wouldn\u2019t survive without parasites. So if we stopped basic research, we wouldn\u2019t go anywhere else, and we would stop learning about what makes us all exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tapeworm Teacher<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the biggest thrills of Fyler\u2019s graduate work was naming a new species of tapeworm \u2013 one of 15 new species she discovered during her graduate work \u2013 after Carl Zimmer, author of the book Parasite Rex<\/em>, which first inspired her to study parasites.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like to study charismatic megafauna, like whales,\u201d she says. \u201cBut parasites and their hosts are a major reason all of biodiversity came to be. I liked the idea that tapeworms are the underdogs, and comparatively little is known about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Fyler\u2019s students at Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, N.J., where she teaches biology, are budding tapeworm experts. Fyler spends three weeks at the end of each year teaching students about parasite origins and diversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m constantly using my research as an example,\u201d she says. \u201cThe students love it. And the skills I gained at UConn, I use every day, whether in the classroom or in the laboratory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biological Backing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Caira\u2019s research is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, her work training students has been exponentially expanded over the years by private support.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two species of tapeworm discovered in the Caira laboratory. The slender, elongated worm is Megalonchos shawae, named after parasite expert Judith Shaw. The shorter, wider one, Symcalliobothrium peteri, was named after alumnus James Bernot’s father. (Image courtesy of Janine Caira)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A chance encounter between Caira and parasite devotee Judith Shaw \u201948, who worked on a national parasite catalog at the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Md., led to Shaw establishing UConn\u2019s Judith Humphrey Shaw Parasitology Fund in 1991.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudy\u2019s generosity has had a phenomenal impact on parasitology and the training of students at UConn,\u201d says Caira. \u201cShe\u2019s made it possible for students to travel nationally and internationally and experience science in the wild, something you just can\u2019t replicate here on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 200 students and dozens of international researchers have benefited from the fund, Caira says. Its major role has been to enable students to travel to national and international conferences; among other trips, Fyler traveled to Slovakia to attend a workshop.<\/p>\n

Says Bernot, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be where I am without that support. The meeting in Anchorage was the experience that changed my future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernot is currently finishing his master\u2019s degree at UConn and applying for Ph.D. programs in parasitology. He hopes to study how parasites evolved in the first place \u2013 another basic research question about which, he says, scientists know comparatively little.<\/p>\n

And when Fyler mentors her biology students and sends them off to college, she hopes they take with them an appreciation for the unsung heroes of the natural world.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go and study your whales,\u201d she jokes. \u201cI\u2019ll always be a tapeworm lover.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology is celebrating its 30th anniversary this semester with a series of special lectures and events. <\/em>Learn more<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alumni fondly recall hours spent in UConn’s parasitology lab, where they discovered new species of tapeworms \u2013 and learned to be scientists in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":101779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2226,2076,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-101778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-clas","category-research","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:29:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101778"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101785,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101778\/revisions\/101785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/101779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101778"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=101778"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=101778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}