Parasitic Nematodes: Announcing the 2nd “Bridging the Divide” workshop to be held at the 2015 International C. elegans Meeting (June 24th, 2:00pm – 5:00pm, Northwest Auditorium)

Each year infections of animals and plants by parasitic nematodes cause many billions of dollars of agricultural damage. Over a billion people worldwide, particularly in developing nations, are infected by nematodes and suffer from the resulting debilitating diseases. Currently, only a few investigators address problems of parasitic nematodes using C. elegans. To encourage and facilitate more interactions between the C. elegans and parasitic nematode communities, a workshop was held at the 2013 International C. elegans Meeting in which experts in plant, animal and human parasitic nematodes spoke on the life history and unique biology of these parasitic species and on outstanding issues in their field. A key goal of this session was to make C. elegans scientists aware of the issues and problems that parasitic nematode researchers face and pave the way for applying the powerful approaches and technologies that have advanced C. elegans research to parasitic nematodes.

We are hosting a modified version of this session at the start of the upcoming 2015 C. elegans meeting (our session and registration both take place in the afternoon of June 24) in which C. elegans researchers who have worked with other nematodes are invited to share their results and experiences. If you would like to speak at this session, please send your abstract(s) by May 21 to Marty Chalfie.