Some 'Save the Date's:
1. ASM Meeting, Boston, MAY 2014:
Speaker: Christen Rune Stensvold
Session Title: Passion for Parasites! Current Topics in Medical Parasitology
Session Date/Time: 5/18/2014 8:00:00 AM
Presentation Title: Blastocystis Clinical Relevance: More Common and Important than You Think
2. ICOPA, Mexico City, AUGUST 2014:
3. 1st International Blastocystis Symposium, Ankara, 28-29 MAY 2015:
Please go here for more information.
Just found out that out of 1065 Blastocystis papers in PubMed, 269 are can be downloaded for free! If you enter 'Blastocystis' in the search box, you'll see the 1065 or so hits, but if you go to the right side bar, you have the option of having the Free Full Text (269) display.
I have disabled Google+ comments for now due to repetitive abuse. However, it is still possible to comment on blog posts, only now comments will be reviewed and potentially moderated by me prior to publishing.
In case there should be readers who think that I'm trying to propagate the view that Blastocystis is pathogenic, I hope that after going through my blog posts they will realise that I'm not; in fact, I'm much more trying to be the devil's advocate: Blastocystis is 'innocent' unless proven otherwise. In my opinion we have very little clinical evidence of pathogenicity. And at our lab, we generally do not recommend treating patients with Blastocystis. In fact, we really don't know HOW to treat Blastocystis, - and maybe that's one of the most fundamental issues in Blastocystis research. I know that many treatment regimens are currently in use for Blastocystis despite the absence of clinical guidelines, and some of them are used systematically at various clinics it seems, but off the top of my head I cannot think of one single randomised controlled treatment study that have explored the microbiological and clinical effect of treatment. Such studies are critical to our understanding of the role of the parasite in health and disease, although even this type of studies have limitations such as non-specific drug actions that will blur our ability to point out Blastocystis as the culprit, and also some drugs may have adverse effects that mimic symptoms potentially caused by Blastocystis, including symptoms related to intestinal dysbiosis. I hope that those who have extensive experience with Blastocystis treatment will soon take to sharing their knowledge.
But I guess that what we are currently trying in various fields is to get a differentiated view of Blastocystis - for instance: can colonisation turn into infection, and is there any such thing as a Blastocystis infection at all? Can, and if so, when does Blastocystis carriage lead to pathology/disease? Which are the interactions between Blastocystis and the remaining microbiota? What host factors may be responsible for potential differences in Blastocystis-mediated disease susceptibility?
Don't miss the February issue of 'This Month In Blastocystis Research' which will be available in a week or so.
1. ASM Meeting, Boston, MAY 2014:
Speaker: Christen Rune Stensvold
Session Title: Passion for Parasites! Current Topics in Medical Parasitology
Session Date/Time: 5/18/2014 8:00:00 AM
Presentation Title: Blastocystis Clinical Relevance: More Common and Important than You Think
2. ICOPA, Mexico City, AUGUST 2014:
UNU-BIOLAC has accepted to fund the MOLECULAR PARASITOLOGY WORKSHOP-ICOPA 2014 to be held in Mexico city August 7-10! pic.twitter.com/YbTjUI0MFt
— Chr. Rune Stensvold (@Eukaryotes) February 22, 2014
3. 1st International Blastocystis Symposium, Ankara, 28-29 MAY 2015:
Please go here for more information.
Just found out that out of 1065 Blastocystis papers in PubMed, 269 are can be downloaded for free! If you enter 'Blastocystis' in the search box, you'll see the 1065 or so hits, but if you go to the right side bar, you have the option of having the Free Full Text (269) display.
I have disabled Google+ comments for now due to repetitive abuse. However, it is still possible to comment on blog posts, only now comments will be reviewed and potentially moderated by me prior to publishing.
In case there should be readers who think that I'm trying to propagate the view that Blastocystis is pathogenic, I hope that after going through my blog posts they will realise that I'm not; in fact, I'm much more trying to be the devil's advocate: Blastocystis is 'innocent' unless proven otherwise. In my opinion we have very little clinical evidence of pathogenicity. And at our lab, we generally do not recommend treating patients with Blastocystis. In fact, we really don't know HOW to treat Blastocystis, - and maybe that's one of the most fundamental issues in Blastocystis research. I know that many treatment regimens are currently in use for Blastocystis despite the absence of clinical guidelines, and some of them are used systematically at various clinics it seems, but off the top of my head I cannot think of one single randomised controlled treatment study that have explored the microbiological and clinical effect of treatment. Such studies are critical to our understanding of the role of the parasite in health and disease, although even this type of studies have limitations such as non-specific drug actions that will blur our ability to point out Blastocystis as the culprit, and also some drugs may have adverse effects that mimic symptoms potentially caused by Blastocystis, including symptoms related to intestinal dysbiosis. I hope that those who have extensive experience with Blastocystis treatment will soon take to sharing their knowledge.
But I guess that what we are currently trying in various fields is to get a differentiated view of Blastocystis - for instance: can colonisation turn into infection, and is there any such thing as a Blastocystis infection at all? Can, and if so, when does Blastocystis carriage lead to pathology/disease? Which are the interactions between Blastocystis and the remaining microbiota? What host factors may be responsible for potential differences in Blastocystis-mediated disease susceptibility?
Don't miss the February issue of 'This Month In Blastocystis Research' which will be available in a week or so.
