This Month in Blastocystis Research (JUL 2015)

This is the holiday version of the 'This Month...' series, and so I thought I'd give you a break from my usual rantings on Blastocystis and instead provide you with some ideas and links to interesting people and resources that could entertain you on your holiday. And where to look if not to social media?

On Twitter, I have come across a few interesting profiles:

Rosemary Drisdelle with the twitter handle @ParasitesAuthor tweets on Blastocystis and many other parasites. She has also has a website, which can be accessed here,  she hosts a blog, and she has written a book that you can read about here.

Pursue 'the role of #Blastocystis in disease... also explore whether there are good sides to Blastocystis' CR Stensvold

— Rosemary Drisdelle (@ParasitesAuthor) July 15, 2015

A colleague of mine, whom I've probably mentioned before, is Dr Bobbi Pritt, who is also on Twitter (@ParasiteGal) and hosts an amazing blog called Creepy, Dreadful, Wonderful Parasites. Here, she weekly posts cases of parasite infections, presented as quizzes. If you're into this, I also recommend visiting a similar site hosted by the CDC.

A recent and appartently popular tweet featuring Dr Pritt was posted by Mayo Clinic (@MayoClinic) yesterday:

Learn the ABCs of #Ticks w/ @ParasiteGal Dr. Bobbi Pritt @mayocliniclabs http://t.co/pMfjebIN1Q pic.twitter.com/hx3qnVAozr

— Mayo Clinic (@MayoClinic) July 29, 2015

If you're interested in the evolution of protists and eukaryotic taxonomy and even enjoy having a bit of vibrant personality added to that, I highly recommend following @Ocelloid, who until recently hosted a blog on Scientific American.

I would also like to recommend following @MicrobiomDigest, @Phylogenomics, @Jopdevrieze @hollybik, just to mention a few if you like to stay updated on research, discussions and hypotheses on gut microbiome structure and function, which is a topic that these guys tweet about every now and then.

If you take an interest in parasitology in general, make sure never to miss out on This Week in Parasitism. I also recommend that you take a look at my Useful Links & Blogrolls, which you'll find in the right side bar (you'd probably need to scroll down a bit). It's been a while since I checked the links, and maybe one or two will not be valid, apologies in advance for that. However, there should be quite a few interesting things there...

A facebook group on Parasites & Parasitology with more than 27,000 members is available here, and there is also a FB community on Blastocystis with more than 1,700 members here.

As I've mentioned before, Brendan Faegre has actually composed a three-movement piece for orchestra on Blastocystis, which can be accessed here. He writes:

The first movement captures the calamity and chaos of millions of one-celled organisms successfully breaching security and going on a joy-ride through my gut, multiplying at a blinding pace and damaging at least 20 feet of my intestines. The second movement reflects the parasitic nature of B. Hominis musically through a continual spreading of the opening motive to new voices; a steady, strength-in-numbers type of proliferation that is eventually joined by the raucous character from the first movement. The final movement is named after the anti-protazoal agent most commonly prescribed to eliminate the B. Hominis from its host, and represents an epic battle of microscopic proportions between Nitazoxanide and the pathogenic, unwelcome guests. Every time this piece is performed, the musical spirits within me are further empowered to fight off the blastocysts and eliminate them for good.

I myself have two Twitter handles, including @Eukaryotes and @Blastocystis, and I post blog posts, conference information, job offers, paper reviews, etc. on Blastocystis, other parasites and gastroenterology to my Facebook page, which is available here.

All of you looking forward to a bit of vacation in August: Enjoy!