Congratulations to Professor Mark Viney for winning a grant from the Wellcome Trust to study the molecular basis of parasitism in the nematode Strongyloides ratti.The award is for 3-years  (£248,000), and is in collaboration with Jonathan Wastling, Liverpool and Matt Berriman, Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre.

Nematode worms live inside the guts of people. A quarter of all people, mostly in the developing world, have worms. There are drugs that can be used to kill these worms, but these drugs are becoming less effective the more that they are used. In the future new drugs need to be discovered.

Nematode worms that live in the guts of people have evolved special tricks to live in such an odd environment. The new research will try to discover these tricks, especially what molecules these parasitic worms use to live in guts. The study will use a nematode worm that that has a stage that lives in guts and another stage that lives in the soil. Mark and his team will compare these two forms - any molecules that are the same in these two forms are molecules it takes to be a worm. But, molecules that only the gut worm uses must be behind one of the tricks it uses to live in guts. By knowing the molecules that the worms use to live inside people's guts, then in the future drugs that stop these molecules working might be able to kill these worms, but be safe to people.