Need to study a parasite? Infect a grad student

Some graduate students subsist on ramen, some volunteer to get infected by worms. In a case report, researchers at the Netherlands' Leiden University Medical Center describe infecting two students with Schistosoma worms in an attempt to better understand how Katayama syndrome — an illness that arises after infection by Schistosoma larvae — is caused. The students were infected by male worms (chosen so the worms couldn’t lay eggs in their hosts) and developed symptoms including fever and headaches a few weeks later. The cases indicated that it is not the parasite's eggs that cause the syndrome and suggested the culprit might be antigens on the developing worms. Hope the students got some extra credit.

Katayama Syndrome Without Schistosoma mansoni Eggs

Marijke C.C. Langenberg, MD; Marie-Astrid Hoogerwerf, MD; Jacqueline J. Janse, MSc; Lisette van Lieshout, PhD; Paul L.A.M. Corstjens, PhD; Meta Roestenberg, MD, PhD; on behalf of the CoHSI clinical trial team *

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