BSP Travel Award recipient Ciaran McCoy

The primary focus of my PhD is the development of a reverse genetic platform within the model animal parasitic nematode, Ascaris suum.  Due to the emergence of drug resistance, the future prevention and treatment of animal parasitic nematode infections depend upon the development of novel control options.  RNA interference (RNAi) can facilitate the elucidation of gene function and validation of novel drug targets.

I have been very fortunate to visit the labs of Prof. Richard Martin and Dr. Alan Robertson at Iowa State University (ISU) in the pursuit of an elusive post-RNAi phenotype.  The work completed at ISU was based largely on the employment of a highly sensitive electrophysiology-based post-RNAi assay.  As we do not have access to this specialised equipment here in Belfast, my trip to Iowa has made it possible for us to accurately quantify the responsiveness of individual nematode muscle cells to a range of nicotinic agonists following the knockdown of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits.  During the three months that I spent I Iowa I also had the opportunity to dabble in a little tissue specific expression analysis and assess antihelmintic responses in Xenopus oocytes expressing nematode nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits.  The data associated with this study are currently being analysed and we hope to publish the results in the near future. (Fingers crossed).