Beyond the microscope: uncovering the secret strategies of a parasitic worm

Join us for the Leeuwenhoek Prize Lecture given by the 2023 winner Professor Joanne P Webster.

Zoonoses, diseases transmitted between animals and humans, pose a critical global health threat. Increased migration, changing agricultural practices and climate, all enhance the spread of infectious agents among humans and animals, facilitating co-infection and genetic exchange, creating new genotypes. 

Schistosomiasis is a major Neglected Tropical Disease, with over 250 million people currently infected and untold millions of livestock. Despite over two decades of human mass drug administration, the burden of schistosomiasis remains extremely high in certain regions. Whilst animal hosts are acknowledged as zoonotic reservoirs across Asia, elsewhere any zoonotic component of schistosomiasis transmission and its implications for disease control has, until now, been largely ignored.  This is true of both Schistosoma mansoni, but also notably, S. haematobium, which was assumed to be an exclusively human infection – and thus amenable to elimination by targeting treatment of humans alone. 

Here Professor Joanne Webster will present some of her and her team’s recent research revealing widespread viable hybridization between schistosome species of humans with those of livestock throughout Africa and beyond and their roles in disease persistence.  This work raises profound epidemiological and evolutionary implications regarding the One Health control strategies needed, as well as for pathogen transmission dynamics in general in our rapidly changing world.

Professor Joanne P Webster FMedSci is Professor of Parasitic Diseases at the Royal Veterinary College and Heads their Pathogen Flow in Ecosystems strategic grouping.  Joanne is also Director of the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research and Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London's Faculty of Medicine.

Joanne’s Doctoral research at Oxford University focused on zoonotic disease within the UK, including initiating novel work on the impact of Toxoplasma gondii on host behaviour and its association with chronic disease across humans and animals.  After a year working as an NHS Clinical Scientist, Joanne returned to Oxford University as a postdoctoral Fellow, EPA Cephalosporin Junior Research Fellow, Lecturer in Infectious Diseases and as a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF).  During this period Joanne expanded the scope of her work to encompass global health and disease control across Africa and Asia. Joanne accepted a Readership/Chair at Imperial College in 2003 to serve as co-Director of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative from its inauguration, responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of sustainable mass drug administration disease control programmes across Africa. In 2014, Joanne joined the RVC, as director of their Centre for Emerging, Endemic and Exotic Diseases, to further expand her One Health activities.

Photo credit: Poppy Berdoy-Webster

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