Question: What do you think is the coolest parasite ever discovered?

Hannah Bolt answered on 14 Nov 2016:

Hi Cubey123,

I’m probably biased because I work with Leishmania parasites. These cause the neglected tropical disease, leishmaniasis which causes 30,000 deaths each year. It can also cause really nasty skin infections (google ‘leishmaniasis’ if you want to see some pictures of what the disease does).

There are over 20 different types of leishmania parasites. I work with one called Leishmania mexicana, which causes leishmaniasis in Brazil. I think these parasites are really cool as they have a really interesting life cycle. The parasites live in the nose and gut of sand flies and look like single cells with flagella (like a tail) that allows them to swim around. If the sand fly bites a human, the parasites are injected into the human blood stream. In the blood, the parasites are transformed into a different shape (a small round cell) then hide inside human white blood cells and are able to multiply here. These parasites are really clever and I think this makes them pretty cool!

Hannah