The UC Davis Department of Entomology will host the 42nd annual U.S.-Japan Parasitic Diseases Panel Meeting, Wednesday through Friday, Jan. 16-18 in the Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors’ Center. Some 100 scientists from throughout the world will participate.

The event will include two parts: a panel session and a vector biology workshop on “Emerging Barriers to the Management of Vector-borne Infectious Diseases,” said conference chairman and panel member Thomas Scott, professor and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and director of the Mosquito Research Laboratory.

Scott and Neal Van Alfen, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, will welcome the guests. The conference opens at 8 a.m., Wednesday.

The parasitic disease joint-panel members include six U.S. scientists and five Japanese scientists. The panel sessions, with some 40 scientific presentations, will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 16, and from 8 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Jan. 17.

The vector biology workshop, with presentations by 22 scientists, will begin at 1 p.m. Thursday and continue through 6 p.m.Friday.

“The workshop is intended to develop a cross-cutting perspective on what the priorities should be for future research on arthropod vectors of disease,” Scott said.

Parasitic diseases include the mosquito-borne malaria; schistosomiasis, caused by several species of flatworms; amebiasis, contracted by ingesting water or food contaminated with amoebic cysts; leishmaniasis, transmitted by sand flies; and lymphatic filariasis, caused by nematode worms.

At the vector biology workshops, eight UC Davis scientists, including Scott and Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, will give presentations.

Other UC Davis researchers speaking will be:

• Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology and member of the National Academy of Science
• Anthony Cornel, associate professor of entomology
• William Reisen, adjunct professor in the Center for Vectorborne Diseases, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a member of the Entomology Graduate Program
• Shirley Luckhart, assistant professor, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine, and a member of the Entomology Graduate Program
• Greg Lanzaro, professor in Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PMI), School of Veterinary Medicine, and a member of the Entomology Graduate Program
• Aaron Brault, associate professor, PMI, School of Veterinary Medicine.

The event is affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, U.S. Department of State, and three Japanese entities: Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare; and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

James Kazura of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, is the U.S. Panel chair and Kenji Hirayama of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagaski University, chairs the Japanese Panel.

Further information on the conference is available from research administrator Leslie Sandberg of the Scott lab, at (530) 754-6209 or lasandberg@ucdavis.edu.

For the workshop agenda and joint-panel members, see http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/parasiticconference.html