Onchocerciasis, also known as the African river blindness, is the second most important cause of infectious blindness worldwide after trachoma. It is caused by the filarial nematode, <i>Onchocerca volvulus</i>, and transmitted by repeated bites of the vector, female black fly of the genus <i>Simulium damnosum</i>. The vector breeds in fast-flowing and oxygen-rich rivers in affected areas with transmission and disease prevalence usually stretching along these river basins and thereby the name river blindness.[1]Aside from blindness, onchocerciasis results in a troubling chronic dermatitis.[1]
Caenorhabditis elegans embodies the expectations of a solution-driven take on biology on the one hand, and the mysteries and wonders of life that drives biologists to go to their labs on the other hand.
John Sulston, a pioneer in the developmental studies of the nematode <i>C. elegans</i> who went on to spearhead the sequencing of the genome of this organism and ultimately the human genome, died on 6th March 2018, shortly after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. Here, I reflect on John's life and work, with a particular focus on his time working on the developmental genetics and lineage of <i>C. elegans</i><i>.</i>
Unfertilized oocytes, 'squashy eggs', can be scored on a petri plate by adding a few drops of 0.05% Trypan blue to the surface of the plate. The oocytes take up the dye and worms and zygotes do not. The dye has no apparent effect on the worms left on the plate.
The organism about which most is known on a molecular level is a nematode, the free-living organism Caenorhabditis elegans. This organism has served as a reasonable model for the discovery of anthelmintic drugs and for research on the mechanism of action of anthelmintics. Useful information on mechanisms of anthelmintic resistance has also been obtained from studies on C. elegans. Unfortunately, there has not been a large-scale extension of genetic techniques developed in C. elegans to research on parasitic species of veterinary (or human) parasites. Much can be learned about the essentials of nematode biology by studying C. elegans, but discovering the basic biology of nematode parasitism can only be gained through comparative studies on multiple parasitic species.