Tapan Bhattacharyya BSc MSc

Research Degree Student : Molecular epidemiology of T. cruzi

2009 - date

Doctoral studies, LSHTM. Molecular epidemiology of Trypanosoma cruzi, agent of Chagas disease.

Chagas disease remains an important parasitic infection in the Americas. The vectors for the protozoan agent T. cruzi are triatomine bugs, which transmit the infective stage of the parasite in their faeces when taking a blood-meal. Genetically diverse, T. cruzi is classified into 6 sub-lineages (TcI-TcVI) exhibiting a complex geographical distribution and a poorly understood relationship to clinical symptoms. My work is directed towards furthering understanding of the epidemiology of the different parasite genotypes in this neglected tropical disease.

Supported by Chagas EpiNet

 

Publications arising

Bhattacharyya T, Brooks J, Yeo M, Carrasco H, Lewis M, Llewellyn M, Miles M (2010). Analysis of molecular diversity of the Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigote small surface antigen reveals novel epitopes, evidence of positive selection, and potential implications for lineage specific serology. Int J Parasitol 40: 921-8 

Messenger L, Llewellyn M, Bhattacharyya T, Franzen O, Lewis M, Ramirez J, Carrasco H, Andersson B, Miles M (2012). Multiple mitochondrial introgression events and hetereoplasmy in Trypanosoma cruzi revealed by maxicircle MLST and Next Generation Sequencing. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 6: e1584

 

Oral presentations

XII Intl. Congress of Parasitology (ICOPA), Melbourne, 2010. "Using Trypanosoma cruzi lineage-specific synthetic peptides in Chagas disease serology".

VII Chagas Workshop, CRESIB, Barcelona, 2011. "Hacia la serologia especifica para la identificacion del linaje infectante de T. cruzi".

Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, London, 2011. " Chagas disease serology: identifying infecting Trypanosoma cruzi lineages".

British Society for Parasitology, Glasgow, 2012. "Towards Trypanosoma cruzi lineage-specific serology for Chagas disease".

 

 

 

Affiliation

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