Afrika-Festival 2018 in Tübingen

Africa-Festival 2018 Tübingen

Afrika-Festival 2018

The Afrika-Festival 2018 shall take place in Tübingen from Thursday, 9th, to Sunday 12th of August.

Like during the last festivals, Programme Onchocercoses shall be present to show our research activities in Cameroon. You are invited to visit us in the big tent next to the entrance.

 

Thursday – Day 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday – Day 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday

Congress of the German Society for Parasitology in Berlin March 2018

The bi-annual meeting of the German Society for Parasitology took place this year in Berlin, from March 21.-23.

Our project was represented by three talks and two posters.

 

Sevidzem Lendzele and Archile Paguem back in Tübingen

 

 

After Christmas, new collaborators came to Tübingen: Sevidzem Lendzele, who had already been here for 3 months in the summer and Archile Paguem, who comes for his 3rd stay.

Sevidzem had worked together with Tübingen Bachelor-student Leif Rauhöft in Ngaoundéré, testing new traps for catching Simulium and other bloodhungry vector flies. (=> see the report of Leif Rauhöft). He now shall identify these flies by classics and molucular gentic techniques and screen them for virusses, they may eventually transmit.

Archile Paguem is focussing on the evaluation of the 3 Tb of sequencing data of the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) of 5 different Cameroonian cattle breds (Bos taurus and Bos indicus breeds) we received from CEGAT and analyse in cooperation with the QBIC center.

Also on the pictue is Prof. Elisabeth Bum from Cameroon, the supervosor of PhD-student Babette Abanda (right).

Dies universitatis WS 2017/18

AtDies-universitatis-WS-2017-18-11 Dies-universitatis-WS-2017-18-8 Dies-universitatis-WS-2017-18-1 the beginning of the Wintersemester, a presentation of the various activities at the university is given in the foyer of the Hörsaalzentrum on the Morgenstelle. We presented parasites and vectors under the microscope and informed about the various possibilities to work in Cameroon.

Congratulation to Sevidzem Lendzele!

After his 3-months stay in Tübingen, Sevidzem attended the International Congress of Foot & Mouth-Disease in Seoul, South-Corea, where he presented the result of his studies on the possible role of Stomoxyne flies in the transmission of this virus.

His poster was elected to win the First Price of all posters presented!

Congratulations!

He had prepared this poster during his stay in Tübingen and added some impressive scanning electron micro-photographs of the Stomoxys mouhparts and legs, provided by Frau Meinert from Prof’ Oliver Betz group of invertebrate biology.

see the poster:

SEVIDZEM Poster GFRA 2017 modified 5-AR-AE-SL10

Dorothee Gabler and Patrick Weiß in Cameroon

 

 

In August 2017, two Tübingen Bachelor-students, Dorothee Gabler and Patrick Weiss, went to Cameroon to collect data for their theses. Patrick aims to focus on filarial parasites in domestic animals, others than cattle and to examine whether there are filarial species, that live in both cattle and other (small) ruminants.

Dorothee wants to study the survival of Simulium flies, that fed on cattle, either treated with acrarides and/or antiparasite drugs (trypanocides or ivermectin). The aim of Dorothee’s work is to understand why the Annual Biting Rates of Simulium damnosum have decline so much during the past 5 years.

Medical Entomology Workshop 2017

From July 31st to August 12, a workshop on methods of medical entomology is going on.

4 Cameroonian students and young professionals attended this course at the Institute of Evolution and Ecology. Together with 7 German counterparts, they focussed on ticks, Simulium black-flies, tabanid and tsetse flies, that are vectors of African diseases of cattle and man. Molecular identification tools, together with classical microscopical techniques were used to identify vectors and parasites.

Dr. Albert Eisenbarth together with Babette Abanda introduced into the molecular methods at the Department of Comparative Zoology, where the experiments were carried out. From Ixodes ticks, collected in the Schönbuch forest, the students isolated DNA, amplified it with specific primers for bacteria and were thus able to identify Borrelia infestations in one of 7 ticks. A prevalence of 15 % of Borrelia is not unusual for this biotope, but recalls the risks of visiting the Schönbuch.

Excursions led to the Hohenzollern castle and the Atomic cellar in Haigerloch – spectacular sites of history and science.Culicid-larvae Tabanid-fly-2 Tick-flags

“The open-minded discussions helped us to better understand the field-work we are carrying out in Cameroon. For example ticks may be potential vectors of trypanosomes” Claudine Henriette Sen Ngomtcho said.

 

Afrika-Tage in Würzburg 2017

The sad news is that there shall be no Afrika-Festival in Tübingen this year! Instead, Dr. Albert Eisenbarth and Babette Abanda went to Würzburg to present our project there.

Afrika-Festival-Wuerzburg-2017-Babette-Abanda

Please read their report: Read more

Course of vectorbiology and epidemiology 2017

Fortgeschrittenenkurs Vektorbiology und Epidemiologie 2017

16 students attend the course on vectorbiology and epidemiology in the summer-term 2017. Teaching includes the results of the on-going epidemiological work in Cameroon.

students of vectorbiology and epidemiology 2017

students of vectorbiology and epidemiology 2017

Some of the participants of this course would like to do their practicals in the fieldstation in Cameroon. MSc Babette Guimbang Abanda is overseeing the students dissecting Simulium damnosum flies from Cameroon. Some filarial larvar were found.

TUEFF – Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017

TÜFF, the “Tuebingen Window of Research“,

This year, the Tübinger Fenster der Forschung took place on the 28th of April. Research projects at the University of Tübingen presented their activities in research and teaching.

http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/tuefff

More than 100 projects were present in the Hörsaalzentrum on the Campus Morgenstelle. Also Programme Onchocercoses, see pictures.

Our presentation of the field-work in Cameroon highlighted the possibilities of German-Cameroonian collaboration and exchange of students in biology, parasitology and entomology. The Baden-Württemberg Stiftung is supporting this international collaboration and provides grants for visiting students and scientists.

Many students and colleagues came to visit our stand, also Prof. Engler, the rector of the university and Prof. Rosenstiel, the dean of our faculty. Under two microscopes, parasites and vectors could be seen and Cameroonian fruits, coffee and chocolate could be tested – without any parasites, for sure!

Dr. Albert Eisenbarth, MSc Babette Abanda, MSc Archille Paguem and stud. biol. Felicia Trossmann took care of explaining the purpose of our work to the visitors.

TUEFF-2017-komp-1

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017

TUEFF-2017-komp-8

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017

TUEFF-2017-komp-3

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017

TUEFF-2017-komp-5

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017

TUEFF-2017-komp-6

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017 – visitor

TUEFF-2017-komp-7

Tübinger Fenster der Forschung 2017 Babette Abanda, Albert Eisenbarth, Felicia Trossmann, Archille Paguem