Student Alexander Böck – Practical in Ngaoundéré

Part of our DFG- and Baden-Württemberg is the exchange of students to enable them to carry out their own research. Alexander has arrived in Cameroon, together with Dr. Albert Eisenbarth, in May 2016. He is staying in the Programme Onchocercoses laboratory until mid-July. His particular interest is the movement of the microfilariae of Onchocerca ochengi in the skin. Previous work by Frey Zettl has shown that the natural movements of microfilariae is directed towards the ‘head’ and enables them to move quiet quickly, about 1 mm in less than 10 seconds (=> see the video on the front-page of our website!).

The question now, which Alexander is going to investigate is, whether there are any attractants (physical or chemical cues), which can prompt the microfilaria to move into a defined directed – or to avoid it.

Alexander is also participating in the routine inspections of Simulium breeding sites and the monitoring of Onchocerca spp. transmission by anthropo-boophilic Simulium flies.

We wish him all the best for his stay in Ngaoundéré!

Alfons Renz

 

Alexander-Boek-2016-komp

 

stud. biol. Alexander Böck, Univ. of Tübingen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back from Cameroon, he wrote this report on his practical in Ngaoundéré

=> Read more

Collaboration with Spanish Colleagues

Ngaoundéré, Cameroon.

Based on a collaboration with Dr. Carlos Chaccour from the university of Navarra in Spain, a veterinarian, Dr. Gloria Abizanda Sarasa from the Pamplona university, came to Ngaoundéré to start a new trial on the long-acting effects of high doses of ivermectin on Onchocerca worms and disease vectors. Together with our Cameroonian colleagues Drs. Achukwi and Kingslay Manchang, we started fieldwork in May 2016.

Alfons Renz

 

ProgOncho-Team-2016 Body-length-measurement Dan-taking-bloodsample DFG-animals DFG-bull Implantation-of-depot

 

Cameroonian student has begun her research stay in Tübingen.

Babette Abanda, a graduate student from the University of Ngaoundere, Cameroon, has arrived in Germany to learn molecular-genetic techniques at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Tübingen. There, in the laboratory of Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann, she is analying genetic data from the project’s own cattle herd which is naturally infected with different parasites, like filariae, intestinal helminths and trypanosomes. Her two-month long research stay is funded by a travel grant from the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation.

Silke, Anna and Tobias now in Ngaoundéré

 

Silke, Anna and Tobias from Hamburg and Münster arrived in Ngaoundéré. Silke and Tobias shall focus on the production of ESPs of microfilariae and infective L3. They stay for two months in Cameroon. Anna is preparing for her master in linguistics and shall stay for four weeks.

Project partner Daniel Achukwi in Germany

Prof. Daniel Achukwi from IRAD Wakwa is now in Germany to evaluate serum samples from the project cattle herd. He is following training in parasitological, immunological and molecular biology methods at the Tübingen University and the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute in Hamburg.