introduction of president david bruce conn

J. Parasitol., 95(6), 2009, pp. 1251–1252 F American Society of Parasitologists 2009

INTRODUCTION OF PRESIDENT DAVID BRUCE CONN Thaddeus K. Graczyk Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland 21205. e-mail: [email protected]

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow members of the American Society of Parasitologists (ASP), friends, and honored guests, welcome to the ASP Presidential Address. It is my honor to introduce our Society’s president, Dr. David Bruce Conn. I must say that I am meeting Bruce more frequently outside the United States than inside, while attending various European and international congresses, conferences, meetings, and workshops. And, we always have a good time, spent mostly on catching up on developments in our lives and career paths and also reviewing our future travel calendar so we know when we are going to meet next time and if we are going to be there with our wives. So, when I met Bruce at the Xth European Multicolloquium of Parasitology in Paris in August 2008, where we co-chaired the symposium on Sentinel Organisms and Molecular Markers, I thought that we would have our routine chat. However, he surpassed himself by asking me to preside over, and introduce, his presidential address, and I was speechless, deeply honored, and of course, accepted this invitation without hesitation. I also must say that the fact that Bruce has so many scientific contacts and interactions with Poland, which is my native country, helped me enormously to make this instant decision. Then, over the course of time, I realized the enormous task to which I had committed myself. I first met Bruce in 1995 through our mutual friend, Bernie Fried, of Lafayette College. I requested some wild Asian clams from Bruce in order to test for human waterborne pathogens. And the rest is history. Bruce became interested in the work that I was doing, and we developed mutual scientific interests. Since then, we have completed several joint national and international projects and, according to my count, we have 8 joint publications and countless joint presentations. Bruce earned his B.S. with honors in Biology from Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1977. His M.S. in invertebrate biology and entomology was earned from Morehead State University in Kentucky in 1980, and his Ph.D. in invertebrate biology and parasitology was received in 1984 from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. So, the academic genealogy of Bruce, in relation to the ASP, is truly remarkable. Thus, his undergraduate advisor at Lee University was Myrtle Fleming, whose major professor was Barclay McGhee, whose major professor was Clay Huff, a past president of ASP. Indeed, it was Clay Huff who made the gavel that has been passed down through all ASP presidents since 1958. Bruce’s undergraduate NSF research at Suffolk University was in the laboratory of Arthur West, whose major professor was Wilbur Bullock, whose major professor was Harley Van Cleave, also a past president of ASP. Finally, Bruce’s Ph.D. major professor at the University of Cincinnati was Frank Etges, whose major professor was Horace Stunkard, another past president of ASP and, parenthetically, whose major professor was Henry Baldwin Ward, the first president of ASP.

DOI: 10.1645/GE-2334.1

Bruce leads and works with parasitological groups in many countries. What impresses me is that he was among the first American researchers to become involved deeply in research in former Iron Curtain countries following the Cold War. He was invited to be a session organizer for the European Multicolloquium of Parasitology associated with the first major NATO-sponsored conference in eastern Europe (Poznan, Poland) after the Soviet Union collapsed. He is on the editorial board of Acta Parasitologica, a Polish Journal. I assume he fell in love with my country after being a frequent and welcome guest there. He knows a great deal about Poland and sometimes, to my surprise, he even corrects me about facts regarding the history of Poland. Bruce is not new to international scientific leadership. From 1998 to 1999, he was president of the American Microscopical Society (AMS), sustained by marine biologists and zoologists from around the world. Founded in the 1870s, AMS is among the oldest international scientific societies based in the United States. He was also president of the Southeastern Society of Parasitologists, an ASP regional affiliate Society, and he has served on the executive committee of the Tennessee Academy of Science. Last year, his name was added to the Fulbright Senior Specialist roster of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. Bruce’s scientific accomplishments are truly outstanding. He serves as Dean of the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences and Professor of Biology at Berry College in Georgia. When I asked him for a list of administrative accomplishments, he provided me with a 3-page long list; now I understand why Berry College is one of the most successful colleges in the United States. He also holds an adjunct appointment as Associate in Invertebrate Zoology with the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where he is responsible for the parasite collections. He has served on the faculties of the University of Cincinnati and Wilmington College in Ohio, St. Lawrence University in New York, and the University of the South in Tennessee, where he was Chair of the Department of Biology. Bruce has been a visiting professor in the doctoral program on human parasitic diseases at the University of Valencia, Spain, and a graduate thesis examiner for the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Bruce serves, or has served, on the editorial boards of several leading scientific national and international journals, including, the Journal of Parasitology (USA), Parasitology Research (Germany/ USA), Acta Parasitologica (Poland), and Psyche: A Journal of Entomology (USA). He has also served as a specialist editor for International Journal for Parasitology (Australia). Bruce has authored more than 200 scholarly publications, including a textbook, Atlas of Invertebrate Reproduction and Development, which was awarded national honors in bio- and medical publishing by the Association of American Publishers. He has lectured in numerous countries and throughout the United States and has served as a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Sea Grant program, the Slovak Ministry of Education, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and others.

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THE JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY, VOL. 95, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2009

Bruce is extremely enthusiastic with new ideas in an almost boyish way and, with his easy southern charm, managed to secure for himself a research adventure trip on the River Shannon, in Ireland, where his genetic roots rest. In fact, he tells me that he even is named for an Irish lake, Lough Conn. This research resulted in successful collaborations, friendships, nights of song, and the inspiration for one of his books. Unknown to most, Bruce is also a talented writer of children’s fiction, well hidden under his veil of modesty. Bruce is always keen to point out that the keystone to his personal and professional success is his wife, Denise, who has provided a pillar of support for him and kept his feet firmly on the ground. She is an accomplished scientist in her own right, both in the field (as a diver) and in the laboratory. Their sons and daughter have been successfully steered and guided, from infancy into college and careers, with the joint guidance of their parents. I would like to close up this introduction by bringing up a story that took place quite some time ago at our university, when an

invited distinguished professor in sociology instructed students on how to structure their life. He took a large glass jar and filled it completely with large rocks, then with gravel, and finally with the sand. Then, he explained to the students how to structure their life, i.e., that the big rocks represent their family, the gravel is their interest and career, and the house, car, and other small things necessary for our daily life are represented by the sand. ‘‘If I would start to fill out the jar with sand, there would be no room for the family and your career,’’ he said. Then, a student from the back row came up to the podium, opened a bottle of beer, and poured it into the jar. He replied to the professor, ‘‘Irrespective of what your life structure is and how you build it—there is always room for a beer.’’ Bruce’s life has a sound structure with a happy family, an outstanding and successful parasitological career, a great mind with a genuine passion for science, interests, hobbies, surroundings, and small things. He never seems to say ‘‘no’’ to work, but yet he still always has time to enjoy good times with friends!

J. Parasitol., 95(6), 2009, pp. 1253–1263 F American Society of Parasitologists 2009

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: PARASITES ON A SHRINKING PLANET David Bruce Conn* School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia 30149-5036, and Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. e-mail: [email protected]

Planet Earth is shrinking at an ever-accelerating pace. It is not shrinking geologically, of course, or even atmospherically, unless you refer to the growing ozone hole. It is not even shrinking biologically in terms of net biomass, though some might argue that biodiversity is shrinking. But for Homo sapiens as a species, the planet is definitely shrinking. Why is this? Because, at least for now and the foreseeable future, planet Earth is our sole living space. The effective size of the available living space for any species is determined by the ability of that species to disperse throughout potential habitats, to successfully colonize those habitats, and to effectively utilize the resources available to them in those habitats. In terms of terrestrial habitats, since we are essentially a terrestrial species, we have pretty much dispersed to and colonized the entire planet. But we are an ingenious species, highly adaptable, and thus likely to find even other Earthly habitats to colonize—under the ocean, beneath the earth’s surface, in areas such as Antarctica and desert landscapes where we can trade minerals, wind and geothermal energy, and other non-biological resources for food. Homo sapiens seem to be the ultimate invasive species. But, are we really? At first glance, no other species, throughout any of Earth’s history, seems to come close to rivaling the capacity of Homo sapiens for dispersal and colonization of new habitats. The exceptions, of course, are the other species that we intentionally, or unintentionally, take with us as we disperse. These include the plants, animals, and microbes that we take with us as sources of food and fiber—the livestock, the fish, the poultry, and so on. Also included are the parasites—those that live on and in us, those that live on and in the species that we move around with us, and especially those that use both we and our food animals and companion animals as hosts. Since there are apparently more parasitic organisms than free living, these parasites must be actually the ultimate invasive species, using their lowly human and synanthropic animal hosts as vehicles for their own dispersal. Except for the pets or companion animals, we don’t really want to take the other species with us. But we have no choice—we have to eat. And we certainly don’t want to take the parasites with us. But we seem to have no choice here either—the parasites are just too adaptable, too ingenious, too good at staying with us despite our greatest efforts to leave them behind.

technology which ultimately requires complex organization, management, and communication to manage our exceedingly multifarious social division of labor. And so, we parasitologists have to share the high status that is rightfully ours with such other human specialists as deans, engineers, lawyers, bankers, accountants, generals, corporate executives, merchants, journalists, and even—dare I say it—politicians. Actually, some politicians can be rather clever chaps in their own way, making observations across various facets of society to discern important emerging patterns. One such clever politician was almost 70 years ahead of me in recognizing that our planet is indeed shrinking, especially in relation to parasites. Not to allow parasitologists to be outdone by politicians, I hasten to add that it was a parasitologist who most prominently recorded and promoted the ideas of this famous politician. In fact, this parasitologist was a close successor to Henry Baldwin Ward, serving as the third president of the American Society of Parasitologists. The parasitologist was none other than the eminent Professor Richard P. Strong (Fig. 1), one of my scientific heroes, whose contributions to tropical medical parasitology in the early 1900s helped to establish Harvard University as a leading institution in the field during that era (Fig. 2). Today, in my role as Associate in Invertebrate Zoology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, I have the privilege of curating the parasite collections, including those made by Dr. Strong and his colleagues on their many pioneering expeditions to the tropics of Africa, Asia, and South America (Strong et al., 1915, 1926, 1934; Conn, 2002, 2006, 2008). The famous politician was none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest-serving president of the United States

Of parasitologists and politicians In considering all of this, it would seem reasonable to suggest that parasitologists, and other scientists who study infectious diseases, are the most important humans around, at least in terms of explaining, and thus guiding, our biological quest to colonize without being colonized. But, alas, things can never be that simple. As a species, we owe much of our success to the extreme complexity of our society, which in turn has led to complex * Presidential address: American Society of Parasitologists, 16 August 2009, Knoxville, Tennessee. DOI: 10.1645/GE-2341.1

FIGURE 1. Photograph of Richard P. Strong studying clinical parasitology in the Amazon in the 1920s, shortly before becoming ASP president in 1927, with children showing pronounced parasite-induced splenomegaly (from Strong et al., 1926).

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technologies of automobiles and aircraft, respectively. Yet, they would undoubtedly be amazed at the size and speed of aircraft today, which render the jungles to which he referred merely hours away rather than days. Whereas airplanes in FDR’s day could deliver a handful of people from Houston to the jungles of Central America within a day, the jumbo jets of today can deliver hundreds from New York to Central America within five hours. For the 2007 ASP meeting, my flight from Atlanta to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula took scarcely more than three hours. Recently, I also flew with hundreds of other passengers from Miami to Johannesburg, South Africa, nonstop, in less than 24 hours. In so doing, we flew quickly far beyond the endemic areas for the ‘‘sleeping sickness of Equatorial Africa’’ to which FDR referred. Of parasites, pigs, and pandemics

FIGURE 2. Title page from one of several books published by Richard Strong and his associates, detailing their parasitological expeditions to the tropics in the years prior to his becoming the third president of the American Society of Parasitologists in 1927. One of the coauthors, Ernest Tyzzer, was ASP president in 1934 (from Strong et al., 1915).

and certainly one of the most legendary. In August of 1941, in the preface to the sixth edition of the classic textbook, Stitt’s Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment of Tropical Diseases, Richard P. Strong (1944) wrote: ‘‘President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an address made at the National Institute of Health on November 1, 1940, emphasized that the United States was less than a day by plane from the jungle type of yellow fever of South America, less than two days from the sleeping sickness of Equatorial Africa, less than three days from cholera and bubonic plague; and he added, ‘The ramparts we watch must be civilian in addition to military.’ Hence the world now has become so inter-related and apparently so small, that our medical and sanitary responsibilities regarding tropical diseases have greatly increased.’’ So, with this statement noting that the world had become ‘‘so small,’’ Strong credited FDR as being an astute politician who was an early visionary in recognizing that increased speed and frequency of human travel had caused the world to shrink, with respect to the threat of parasitic and other infectious diseases. FDR and Strong were born into the world of Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers and had seen phenomenal advances in the

The last few months have seen an unprecedented awareness among today’s public of the increased dangers of infectious diseases in this shrunken planet. The specific threats concerning most, however, have not been parasitic diseases, but viral pandemics—in particular the newest strain of zoonotic H1N1 influenza virus, initially referred to as ‘‘swine flu,’’ but now known to be a complex variant of human-bird-swine association. This sort of infection causes greater public alarm than do the parasitic diseases that we in the ASP study, primarily because they are fast-spreading, fast-acting, and frequently lethal. In contrast, parasitic diseases may, in the long run, cause higher morbidity and mortality, but do not provoke as much public hysteria since their impact tends to be more chronic or gradual. But, since the viral diseases tend to gain more attention from the media, followed by more funding from governments, we should look for ways that our expertise as parasitologists can benefit from this exposure and, thus, can give us more relevance in the public eye. My former student and now distinguished colleague, Dr. Laura Harrington, was gracious to join us for this conference to share her perspectives on mosquito-transmitted dengue virus. We have learned much from her presentation that can be applied to our work with malaria, sleeping sickness, and other arthropod-borne diseases. But, in order to integrate these fields, we need to understand the important differences between viral and parasitic diseases. In her brief but excellent book on virology titled The Invisible Enemy, published in 2000, British virologist Dorothy H. Crawford emphasized the role of increased travel in spreading diseases to new populations. She subtitled this section of her book ‘‘Missionaries and Traders,’’ as she emphasized the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. In reference to smallpox, measles, mumps, and rubella, she noted that 4 characteristics led to the explosive outbreaks of these epidemic diseases for many centuries among large, stable, densely packed human populations. Those characteristics are: (1) these viruses only infect humans, (2) they do not infect the same person twice, (3) they cannot establish a chronic infection, and (4) they rely on continual passage from person to person. The stories of entire cities being decimated by these and other viral and bacterial pathogens are horrific, and the fears that stemmed from them are deeply embedded in our popular and scientific cultures. However, the characteristics that made these diseases thrive, but which ultimately have led to their relative control, are very much unlike the characteristics of parasitic

CONN—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

TABLE I. Comparison of major characteristics of epidemic viral diseases with parasitic diseases. These differences are the basis for different public perceptions, as well as for different potentials for control. Characteristics of epidemic viral diseases (smallpox, measles, mumps, and rubella) (according to Crawford, 2000)

Characteristics of parasitic diseases (according to Conn, present report)

1) They only infect humans

1) Instead of humans, they usually infect other animals which serve as vectors, reservoirs, or both 2) They do not infect the 2) They typically are capable of same person twice multiple sequential infections of the same individual host 3) They cannot establish a chronic 3) More often than not, they infection establish chronic infections 4) They rely on continual passage 4) Many of them are not transfrom person to person missible directly from one person to another without an intervening period of development outside a host, or passage through an intermediate host

diseases, most of which remain poorly controlled. In contrast to these viral brush fires, parasitic diseases tend to burn and smolder slowly and steadily through human populations. For the most part, the characteristics of parasitic diseases are: (1) instead of humans, they usually infect other animals, which serve as vectors and/or reservoirs, (2) they typically are capable of multiple sequential infections of the same individual host, (3) more often than not they establish chronic infections, and (4) many of them are not transmissible directly from one person to another without an intervening period of development outside a host (as in most monoxenous parasites), or passage through an intermediate host (Table I). If the morbidity and mortality levels of the major parasitic diseases were added up over the centuries, it is likely that they would greatly exceed the levels for the major viral diseases. Yet, people tend to fear the sudden and calamitous perils more than the slow and gradual. For example, people fear plane crashes more than they fear Alzheimer’s Disease, though vastly more die of the latter. Thus, the focus of our concerns regarding infectious diseases as public health threats remains on pathogens that are perceived as capable of creating sudden and catastrophic pandemics. This means that most parasitic diseases—even those that affect hundreds of millions of people every year—fail to strike terror into most people. For parasitologists, this creates a public relations challenge that reduces our press and media visibility and ultimately reduces our chances for funding. But, public perceptions are changing somewhat in ways that might improve our perceived relevance to the average American or European citizen. For parasitologists who have long struggled to understand the complexities of parasite life cycles, there is a silver lining to the clouds of such maladies as West Nile virus, H1N1 ‘‘swine flu,’’ and even bovine spongiform encephalitis and other prion-associated diseases. It seems, at this time in history, that the public is more aware than ever of the interconnectedness between human and animal health. Alas, the average American, Canadian, and European citizen is finally coming to understand zoonotic infections. Insects can carry human diseases, sushi and oysters can be contaminated by

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human pathogens, wild birds and livestock can serve as reservoirs of human diseases, and water sources can be contaminated by pathogens from cattle farms that are infectious to humans. For most non-scientists of today, these zoonoses are strange new phenomena; but to parasitologists, this is the natural order of things. The renewed public awareness of these things was underscored recently by David Letterman, in his late-night television comic monologue on 19 June 2009. Letterman earned enthusiastic applause from his audience when he announced that there was good news, that scientists predicted that West Nile Virus would not be a major problem this summer; after a strategic pause, he added that the bad news was that the West Nile Virus was low because the birds had all come down with Swine Flu. The robust laughter following the punch line indicated, however, that the audience got the point—animal health and human health are interconnected. If even David Letterman and his audience get the point, then we as parasitologists truly have an opportunity in our hands. Whether we are working with emerging parasitic zoonoses such as microsporidiosis or cryptosporidiosis, wildlife and livestock diseases, or with diseases of fish that impact our growing aquacultural interests, parasitologists have a window of opportunity to communicate our concerns, and our solutions, to a public whose knowledge and interest are unprecedented since the early years of the twentieth century, when malaria and hookworm disease still dominated much of the American South. New and emerging, or old and re-emerging? So, while a shrinking planet may bring more people into contact with infections, it is important to make note of the fact that major parasitic diseases are not new to North Americans; they have just been forgotten by the last few, fortunate generations. One of the most popular displays that we have presented at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and the display of which I am perhaps most proud, is the ‘‘Cherry Tapeworm Collection.’’ The collection is named after the Boston physician, identified on some of the museum labels only as ‘‘Dr. Cherry,’’ who made the collection in the later 1800s. This is an assortment of large adult Taenia saginata tapeworms, sorted individually in large museum jars (Fig. 3) with the name of each patient from which the worm was voided proudly displayed on the label. One label states that the contained, 45-foot tapeworm came from Miss Lottie Fowler of Hayward Place (Pick, 2004). These proud Bostonians of this earlier century apparently did not object to having their personal identity associated with the mammoth worms that had issued from their bowels. Presumably, this is because such things were commonplace at that time and no more worthy of shame than having a cold would be today. But that was in a cold northern city, and Taeniasis saginata was not considered a major public health problem. With malaria and hookworm prominent on the health scene, the situation in the nearly subtropical rural South was quite different through the early part of the twentieth century. My home in Monteagle, Tennessee, not too far from where we are meeting today, is part of an unusual resort community that sits atop the Cumberland Plateau at an elevation of approximately 700 meters above sea level. The resort is unlike what most people think of as a resort today, because it began with a gated enclave known as the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly, where people gathered each summer to commune and study the Bible

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FIGURE 3. Display of large Taenia cestodes collected from named patients by ‘‘Dr. Cherry’’ of Boston in the late 1800s and deposited in the collections of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Parasites such as this were common, even in urban North America, during that time period.

beginning in the late 1800s. But if the early residents of this somewhat reclusive assembly were only seeking communal worship, why do it only in the summer, and why on a remote mountaintop? According to popular accounts, the answer is that they were not just trying to seek God, but to escape what was then the scourge of the American Southeast: malaria. Plasmodium vivax malaria was abundant throughout the eastern United States a century ago, especially in the South, but reaching far north along the Atlantic coastal plain and the Mississippi Valley lowlands. Of course, we know now what was not known when the Monteagle Assembly was founded, that the disease occurred where Anopheles mosquitoes and humans came together. But this south temperate region was barely on the northernmost climatological edge conducive to its transmission. Even today, the climate is markedly different on the northwestern side of the Cumberland Plateau, which is dominated by cool air masses crossing the Great Plains, and the southeastern side of the Plateau, which is dominated by warm moist air masses from the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, the plateau’s geological characteristics of karstic limestone ridges, capped by a layer of sandstone, limit natural

mosquito breeding areas. Thus, in this climatological boundary area of Middle Tennessee, it took only a small rise in elevation to leave summer swarms of Anopheles behind, making Monteagle and similar communities relatively free of malaria. Similar conditions undoubtedly drove the early popularity of resort communities of the Blue Ridge Mountains in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, such as Gatlinburg, just outside Knoxville. In that period of new, increased capabilities of pleasure travel by the wealthy elite, Europeans also moved seasonally among resort areas to escape the diseases of summer, a situation which inspired the novelist Henry James in 1877 to develop his fictional character, ‘‘Daisy Miller,’’ who left the hygienic safety of the Alps only to die from malaria in the urban lowlands of Italy in the form of what was known then as ‘‘Roman Fever.’’ It is interesting that in Sewanee, Tennessee, only 5 miles from Monteagle, and also on this mountaintop refuge from malaria and yellow fever, one of the major heroes of our struggles against mosquito-borne tropical diseases lived for some years. William C. Gorgas, the army medical doctor credited with ridding the Panama Canal Zone of the mosquito vectors of malaria and yellow fever (Crosby, 2006), is memorialized in a stained glass window of All Saint’s Chapel of The University of the South, which is located in Sewanee (Fig. 4). Gorgas Hall, also on the campus, bears his family name, honoring his alma mater and his father’s service to the university. But while the young Gorgas enjoyed childhood and early manhood as a college student in this relatively safe haven, he later contracted yellow fever himself, and the woman who would become his wife almost died of yellow fever (Harrison, 1978). These encounters undoubtedly fueled his legendary drive to expunge disease-carrying mosquitoes from areas of human activity. His dramatic successes in Havana and Panama ultimately set the stage for eliminating malaria from the United States (Garrett, 1994). Along the northern East Coast, similar phenomena, combined with the desire just to escape oppressive summer heat and humidity, drove the development of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks and Catskills, of New York State, and the famous island mansions of the Thousand Islands along the St. Lawrence River, where well-heeled families from Baltimore, Boston, Toronto, and New York summered. It probably is fitting that the Rockefeller Foundation would one day initiate ‘‘The Great Neglected Diseases’’ program, since the Rockefeller family was able to escape the diseases of summer in their Adirondack camp on Saranac Lake, near the famous ski resort of Lake Placid. Of course, as John Hawdon would probably remind us, the Rockefellers’ first initiatives in the early 1900s focused not on malaria, but on hookworm disease (Harrison, 1978). In a similar effort to avoid the diseases and discomfort of hot New York City summers, exacerbated by such things as the salt-marsh mosquitoes of Long Island, Franklin D. Roosevelt himself summered with his family at their cottage on Campobello Island, which was cooled by the frigid Canadian waters of the Bay of Fundy. Tragically, FDR was unable to go there often in his later years following his paralyzing encounter with the polio virus, another infectious agent that continues to torment humankind (Nowlan, 1975). Whether we are dealing with ‘‘diseases of summer’’ or ‘‘tropical diseases,’’ both flourish in warm climatic conditions. Some things seem never to change. Those who have the means or the circumstances can escape the ravages of these warm-climate diseases, while others remain at their mercy. The Great Camps of


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FIGURE 5. Display of coffee from around the world at a shop in Seville, Spain, in 2009, demonstrating the degree to which global commerce and transport of agricultural commodities around the world has become commonplace, thus interlinking the world both economically and biotically.

FIGURE 4. Stained-glass window in All Saint’s Chapel at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, honoring the memory of William C. Gorgas for his work in controlling the mosquito vectors of malaria and yellow fever in Cuba and Panama at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Gorgas lived as a child, and later a college student, in Sewanee, a haven from most of the mosquitoes that devastated the American South with yellow fever and malaria at that time. Gorgas died in 1920, just four years before the ASP was founded.

the Adirondacks and Monteagle’s Sunday School Assembly lost much of their luster as soon as the technologies of air conditioning and refrigeration became widely available. After all, why would you drag your family and your Bible three hundred pre-Interstate miles to a remote outpost in rural Tennessee when you could stay in the comfort of your now insect-free, air-conditioned home in Savannah or Charleston? It was not long before these luxuries became affordable to the masses, at least in the developed world. And so, we all escaped malaria, though by this time the technology of DDT and other pesticides, combined with physical elimination or treatment of mosquito breeding habitats, had suppressed Anopheles populations to the point of eliminating Plasmodium vivax from North America north of Mexico. Unfortunately, technologies bring relief but, ultimately, they open new risks. Thus, winning a battle against disease and discomfort brought prosperity to the American South. But the technologies of air conditioning and inexpensive fuel bring environmental damage, which potentially leads to climate change. Meanwhile, the prosperity made possible by these technologies ultimately brings new immigration, and new immigration coupled

with lowered quality of housing and healthcare, and combined with climate change, may be helping tropical diseases to spread anew in North America and elsewhere, among parasites of both humans (Fayer, 2000) and non-human animals (Aguirre and Tabor, 2008). The increased incidence and/or awareness of Trypanosoma cruzi in North America is a striking example of this potential. My colleague at Berry College, Chris Hall, and his students currently devote much of their time to research on the occurrence and transmission of T. cruzi in Georgia, Tennessee, and other parts of the Southeast, where previously it was thought not to exist (Hall et al., 2007). One world, shrinking economies, and global commerce But, introduction of new diseases or re-emergence of old diseases, whether among humans, fish, or livestock, constitutes only one aspect of problems associated with a shrinking planet. In my recent letter to the membership, published in the Newsletter of the American Society of Parasitologists, I pointed out that the world is shrinking in unprecedented ways related to rapid global movement of people and animals, but with far wider implications. A few months ago, I was visiting my daughter Sarah in Seville, Spain. As a good university student learning to cope with chronic sleep deprivation, she took us to one of her favorite hangouts. It was not a classic Andalucian tapas bar, but a Starbucks Coffee franchise. Safely off the cobbled Sevillan streets, we had our choice of roasted brews from Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Sumatra, Hawaii, and a host of other countries scattered around the world (Fig. 5). All were advertised to have been shipped-in fresh from all these remote corners of the globe. What better example of how global our modern trade has become? Sure, we’ve been shipping silk and tea from China to England for centuries by sailing vessels. But now, as Thaddeus Graczyk and others have shown us, we are shipping tasty, plump vegetables from Peru to the United States, in a matter of hours, fresh and still sporting their crisp leaves, with

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their infectious Cyclospora oocysts hidden away in protective recesses (Graczyk et al., 1998). The important implications of this sort of global trade, however, is not just the direct transmission of viable parasites across great distances, but the degree to which the economies of the world are now just one global economy. The current global economic recession is an indicator of how interconnected we all are. The planet is shrinking, and the health of farm laborers in Peru or Somalia, and of factory workers in Bratislava or Manila, is a matter of grave and immediate importance to all of us. Again, as scientists who specialize in global diseases, parasitologists are in a better position than most to understand and to address these issues. Of course, as small-planet transportation brings small-planet commerce, so small-planet commerce brings small-planet conflict. Such conflict, whether in the form of commodity embargoes, diplomatic posturing, terrorism, or war, continues to be a concern for all, but especially a concern for parasitologists. It can be said truthfully that the field of parasitology, and thus parasitologists themselves, benefit from war and other acts of mass human aggression. It is no accident that military organizations of many countries have played a major role in the emergence and continuing relevance of our beloved field of study. Gorgas, and his colleague Walter Reed, by no accident were Army doctors (Crosby, 2006). Likewise, parasitology benefits from many forms of human suffering associated with chronic poverty. This isn’t to say that parasitology is, thus, a malevolent thing. Quite the contrary is true. Parasitology provides answers to grave human problems that are exacerbated by such things as war and poverty. In much the same way, oncology and oncologists benefit from the occurrence of cancer. But parasitology, like all natural sciences, is hurt by economic downturns in otherwise economically developed countries. So, even as wars rage around us and environmental disasters loom large in the news, parasitology is in a period of stress. Corporations are declaring bankruptcy or being downsized, governmental agencies are taking austerity measures, and university budgets are being slashed around the world in the pall of the current economic recession. This recession is said by many economists to be second only to the Great Depression of the 1930s in its severity, but is more widespread than even that harsh period, inasmuch as the current economic crisis is global rather than primarily in industrialized nations. Some over the years have feared that parasitology as a discipline is dying, or have lamented that it is being pushed aside by other disciplines. As I see things, parasitology is actually at the height of its relevance to the world and its promise as a discipline that can solve some of the world’s major problems. This growth in importance and relevance is partly based on positive changes over the years, as new technologies and multidisciplinary perspectives and approaches have been embraced by parasitologists. This, in turn, has been accomplished simply because parasitologists, by necessity, have always been more broadly trained than many biologists and are, thus, highly adaptable to evolving circumstances and priorities. But, the growth is partly based on negative changes such as the resurgence of major parasitic diseases, the emergence of new diseases, and the entrenched immovability of others. As a scientific society, the ASP has numerous strengths that will take us forward into the coming years. First, the ASP is a broadly international society, with members from about 50 countries, and

our members are involved in a growing number of collaborative multinational research projects. Yet, we are affiliated with nine regional societies that give us close connection with a wide range of colleagues and students who are active at more local levels. In his presidential address delivered aptly in Glasgow, Scotland in 2006, along with the International Congress of Parasitology, Tim Yoshino (2006) charged the ASP membership with ‘‘Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,’’ adapting the phrase coined by Rene´ Dubos in his 1981 book, Celebrations of Life. Tim’s informed words and wise advice resonated with me then as well as now and, today, I believe that the ASP as a society simultaneously thinks and acts both globally and locally. By our very nature, we are on the front lines in the emerging ‘‘One World–One Health’’ movement that is shaping the future of health care for humans, animals, fish, and wildlife. We have broad expertise in zoonotic and vector-borne diseases of all sorts, in addition to parasitic diseases. In this room, we have scientists studying parasites, parasitic diseases, and related topics across the spectrum from basic biology of worms and hosts to epidemiological monitoring methods, to development of pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, we count among our ranks scientists who study parasites of everything from honeybees to salmon, to dogs, to humans. And, of course, we have many among us who are best identified as invertebrate zoologists, studying parasites not because of diseases that they cause, but simply because parasites are complex and fascinating animals. So, we are an extraordinarily diverse assemblage of scientists, which is a good thing. ASP pastpresident Sharon Patton, whose hospitality we are enjoying today in Knoxville, noted this eloquently in a recent address to the Helminthological Society of Washington subtitled, ‘‘Our Strength Is Our Diversity’’ (Patton, 2002). She characterized the ASP well; indeed, diversity is perhaps our greatest asset. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE VIABILITY So what, specifically, should we do to keep moving and sustain our viability as a scientific society into this promising future on our shrinking planet? I have six suggestions. 1) First and foremost, we must not lose our passion for pure science. I have spoken today primarily about human and animal health in the context of parasitic diseases, and in so doing, have implicitly attempted to foster passion regarding service to humanity through our studies. However, I would betray myself if I did not point out that I, like most members of the ASP, came to this discipline primarily out of simple fascination with the most amazing creatures on the planet and the desire to learn more about them. Many of us were seduced into parasitology by crusty professors regaling us with stories of Leucochloridium sporocysts and pulsating snail tentacles, or body-snatching Dicrocoelium cercariae, slime balls, and misbehaving ants. I never liked to think of myself as a high-school science nerd, but I must admit that at the age of 16, I fell in love with parasitic worms. As with most teenage crushes, it happened suddenly and unexpectedly, but unlike other capricious amorous adventures, this one has continued for almost 40 years. I was a junior in high school and was doing a routine prospective student visit to Lee University in my hometown. Since I had indicated an interest in biology, I was


assigned to sit in on a biology class. My real interest was in ornithology, but the class was a parasitology lab taught by Myrtle Fleming, a former student of Barclay McGhee. My ornithological readings had introduced me to the fundamental concepts of functional morphology, and my young mind had been intrigued by the idea that the thick, blunt beaks of cardinals adapted them for crushing seeds, while small, sharp beaks of warblers adapted them for picking small insects from vegetation, while long legs and long, spear-like beaks of egrets allowed them to wade in water and spear fish. For weeks, I had been pondering the idea that every animal was morphologically and physiologically fine tuned to its particular environment and habitat. It was with this simmering in my mind that I was led to a lab bench by Dr. Fleming, who proceeded to lay a freshly road-killed opossum on the bench. I had seen dead opossums before and was not especially impressed, but when she pulled out a scalpel and slit it open, I became a bit more interested. What she did next changed my life forever; she sliced open the gut and out poured a writhing mass of large nematodes. It all clicked together. Song sparrows are adapted to live in fields and eat seeds; downy woodpeckers are adapted to live in temperate forests and eat insects; these nematodes are adapted to live inside the opossum and eat whatever is in the opossum’s gut. It is still this sense of wonder in nature that drives me onward as a scientist. Even today, despite my rather diverse research work, including practical areas such as developing new biomonitoring technologies for zoonotic diseases and exploring potential pathogens of invasive species, I still get most excited when I’m doing things like sitting in a meeting room or lab with fellow cestode enthusiasts puzzling over the adaptive nature of egg envelopes, microtriches, and scolex spines on tapeworms of sharks. So, our passion is fueled by what may appear esoteric, but invariably it leads us to do science that is ultimately applicable to many utilitarian purposes. If we abandon the wonder in favor of the mundane, we will lose the passion, and ultimately we will fail as scientists. 2) Second, we must bring more students into the discipline and nurture them in the society. I described the sense of wonder that drew me into parasitology. I believe that it is a comparable sense of wonder that attracts new students to our field and beckons them to join us on our lifelong quest. But attracting is not enough. They must be nurtured, encouraged, cultivated, and ultimately, the older generation must empower them to surpass us as we turn over the reins. We should do this by holding a high standard for them, while remembering that their talents and successes remain hidden within their youth. Some of you, especially the elders of this ASP tribe, will identify with a story that I can tell about my own youthful days in parasitology. It was the summer of 1976, and as an undergraduate junior, I had been selected to participate in a research program on marine parasites at Suffolk University’s field station on the Bay of Fundy, at the U.S.–Canadian border. I was one of six undergraduates who learned and grew that summer under the nurturing mentorship of such great teachers, but mere mortals, as Art West, Marvin Meyer, and Wilbur Bullock. Throughout the summer, we scoured the literature on such lovely beasts as the trematode, Cryptocotyle lingua, and through the literature came to recognize the names of such near gods as Horace W. Stunkard, who had served as ASP president in 1939.

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Thus, it was with great reverence and anticipation that one July week we six students made a pilgrimage to Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory to seek an audience with the great professor. When we finally came into his presence, he listened with little expression and a smattering of neutral comments while each of us told him about our research projects. When my turn came, I explained that I was studying parasites of marine birds, but that I was looking primarily at eggs in fecal samples, since I was forbidden by local politics from killing the birds for necropsy. I was rather proud, however, of the distribution patterns that I had been able to work out through my extensive collecting and fecal exams. I’ll never forget the moment that Stunkard’s previously bored expression turned into a scowl of disdain. Or, was it just disappointment that my generation had regressed so far? In any case, he looked at me and said, ‘‘You’re wasting your time. You’ll never learn anything from studying eggs. You have no future, so you might as well go home.’’ Well, a long drive back to Maine, and a few depressing days of trying to get over my humiliation and disappointment, I began to learn that I could be just as obstinate as Horace Stunkard. I didn’t stop working with eggs; I had no choice in that for the summer. But I never stopped working with eggs. In fact, I still work with cestode eggs and have been overjoyed to discover that, with newer technologies such as confocal microscopy and digital image analysis, of which Stunkard was either unaware or unimpressed, helminth eggs actually have much to reveal about the parasites’ life strategies, adaptability, phylogeny, and evolutionary relationships. Horace probably never envisioned today’s rapidly shrinking planet, where using free Skype and document cams, I can view and discuss my electron micrographs of eggs in real time with my colleagues, Peter S´widerski and Daniel Młocicki, as they sit in their labs in Warsaw, Poland while I sit in my lab in Mount Berry, Georgia. Stunkard probably didn’t dream of a day when I could carry copies of every paper he ever published—even his entire library—on a little fingernail-sized chip in my pocket, then download a new reference on my iPhone, via satellite, while I sit on the commuter train from Boston to Providence, or for that matter, with the satellite enhancements just announced this summer by the airlines, on my non-stop flight home from Tokyo to Atlanta. I am bullheaded enough that Stunkard didn’t stop me. But sadly, over the years, I have seen many young, talented, aspiring scientists turned away by impatient or insensitive professors. I am not saying this to disparage Horace Stunkard, whose record of achievement is beyond reproach. Many parasitologists, including leading figures in medical and veterinary parasitology, such as Richard P. Strong, solicited Stunkard’s taxonomic assistance over many decades (Fig. 6). Stunkard published perhaps more than any of us, and he was the mentor of such accomplished parasitologists as my own doctoral professor, Frank Etges, and the walking encyclopedia of trematodology, the beloved Raymond Cable, who was ASP president in 1964. So, my advice to the older scientists among us is: Don’t be too quick to discourage your young prote´ge´es on the basis of your own experience. As great as your experience is, it has not prepared you to practice science in the world that your students will traverse. And my advice to the young scientists among us is: Don’t let others discourage you from pursuing your passions and your instincts. You are destined to live and work in a world that is

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FIGURE 6. Handwritten museum data card at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. The parasites were collected by Richard P. Strong, Harvard University professor and third president of the American Society of Parasitologists in 1927, on one of his expeditions to study parasitic diseases of humans and animals in the tropics. They were identified by Horace W. Stunkard, New York University professor and 15th president of the ASP in 1939.

technologically, politically, and culturally different from anything that your professors will ever live to experience. You are destined to live in a world that is smaller than that inhabited by your predecessors, and in its smallness, you will encounter opportunities that your mentors never knew existed. 3) Third, we must learn to partner more effectively with organizations and disciplines whose interests intersect with our own. It seems to me that these fall into three broad categories. A) For those interested primarily in the disease-producing aspects of parasites, there are other organizations that approach parasitic disease from the perspective of specific hosts. The strongest groups of these are probably organizations related to veterinary parasitology. We have loose affiliations with some of these societies, such as the American Society for Veterinary Parasitology, and occasionally have had joint meetings. But there are others with which we do not interact adequately. In recent years, I have made a point of attending conferences of some of these groups. Invariably, they have been exciting and educational and chock full of information and networking opportunities for parasitologists. One large group, the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology, met just last week in Alberta, Canada—right in prime ASP turf. Another group with which we might interact, especially in this day when so many are aware of emerging diseases, is the International Workshop on Opportunistic Protists. This is a specialized group that meets once every three years to discuss such parasites as Cryptosporidium, microsporidia, and opportunistic, free-living amoebae. Their next meeting will be in Hawaii in 2010, intentionally timed so some ASP members might do a layover on our way to the ICOPA in Australia. I have been asked by Edna Kaneshiro, who is organizing the IWOP, if the ASP might be interested in cooperation. Travel budgets are tight, of course, and may still be then. But we need to explore all possibilities to broaden our influence in other scientific circles where parasites are of interest.

B) For those who are interested primarily in infectious diseases of all sorts, including parasites alongside bacterial, viruses, fungi, and others, there is much to be gained from interacting with organizations that approach infection from a broader base. Of course, we do this some, as when we meet jointly with the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. But there are others that may interest other subsets of our membership. Next month, I will attend the biannual meeting of the European Association of Fish Pathologists. This organization deals with all sorts of infectious and non-infectious diseases of fish and shellfish; but parasitology is a growing emphasis. This year, the meeting will be held in Prague and is hosted by the Institute of Parasitology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. With our strong interest in fisheries and aquaculture in North America, perhaps we should seek groups with which to partner on fish parasites. Another group, the Society of Tropical Veterinary Medicine, has a great emphasis on parasites, and many of its leaders have been parasitologists. They happened to meet in Me´rida, Mexico, the week before we met there in 2007. I attended both meetings and saw considerable opportunities for collaboration. Others in the ASP have similar connections and could make other recommendations. C) For those of us who are mostly interested in parasites as organisms, regardless of their role in causing disease, there are many opportunities. As an invertebrate zoologist who works occasionally with non-parasitic arthropods, mollusks, and other free-living animals, it disturbs me that general zoological organizations and conferences frequently neglect parasites altogether and pay almost no attention to such important groups of invertebrates as cestodes, trematodes, and horsehair worms. I am a past president of the American Microscopical Society, which is the primary organization in the United States that concentrates on all invertebrate animals. Yet, while parasitology has played a significant role in the history of the AMS and in their excellent journal, and many ASP members have been AMS presidents, that role is diminishing. The same is true for the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, formerly known as the American Society of Zoologists. As a result, every major textbook on invertebrate zoology is up to date on most taxa, but is thirty years or more behind on their coverage of tapeworms, flukes, and parasitic nematodes; an exception is my own Atlas of Invertebrate Reproduction and Development, in which I covered parasites as extensively as free-living groups (Conn, 2000). One book, purporting to be a comprehensive treatment of the embryology of all animal taxa (Gilbert and Raunio, 1997), had a single chapter on Platyhelminthes, entirely on turbellarians, with absolutely no coverage of cestodes, trematodes, or monogeneans; except for a dicyemid mesozoan and a passing treatment of some parasitic nematodes within a larger treatment of Caenorhabditis elegans, major parasite taxa were completely ignored. Our best potential model for connecting with other zoologists might be through our regional affiliate, the Parasitology Section of the Canadian Society of Zoologists. The mission and strengths of this organization, and the need for broader collaboration, were laid out clearly by John Barta in an address to the Helminthological Society of Washington (Barta, 2002). The Canadian Section holds their annual meeting with other zoologists from diverse fields and may be able to educate those of us south of the border about the benefits and pitfalls that they experience.


Last year, a new international organization, the International Society for Invertebrate Morphology, was founded and convened their first conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, unfortunately conflicting directly with the European Multicolloquium of Parasitology in Paris; thus, I and other parasitologists could not join the new group. That conference and the new society that it launched, the International Society for Invertebrate Morphology, had scant representation of parasitic invertebrates. The Second International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology will not be the same. It will be hosted by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I will serve on the local arrangements committee and will be organizing a symposium on advances in morphological research on parasitic worms. I will ask some ASP members to participate, and I hope that parasites will be a major part of the organization from now on. I urge all ASP members to seek similar opportunities with the groups of non-parasitologists with which they interact. I know there are many. 4) Fourth, we need to look for better models for cooperation between industry, academe, and government agencies. ASP has had long and strong connections with some federal agencies in the USA, most notably the U.S.D.A., where many of our members are employed. We also have many members who are employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and many other federal and state agencies. We have fewer who work in the pharmaceutical industry. However, despite our historic ties across these diverse spectra, we as parasitologists need to pay attention to new models of collaboration that are being launched today. A story published earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal (Wang, 2009) described a new model for drug discovery, based at Vanderbilt University, which brings academic and industrial science together in an unprecedented way to expedite the discovery and approval of novel drugs. So far, anti-parasite drugs are not on the scene, though the person leading Vanderbilt’s efforts, the Director of the Vanderbilt Program in Drug Discovery, and my younger brother, Jeff Conn, tells me that he has had discussions regarding issues with anti-parasite drugs with some parasitologists. For drug development in general, this approach seems to be the way of the future and is another side effect of the shrinking planet requiring broader collaborative work than in previous history (Jarvis, 2009). This was echoed in a recent e-mail dialog that I had with Tom Kennedy, a member of ASP’s Industrial Liaison Committee, the current president of the WAAVP, and an executive in the pharmaceutical industry. As parasitologists, we need to stay abreast of modern movements that bring basic research more quickly to bear on applications in human and veterinary medicine. 5) Fifth, we must continue to exert pressure on our governmental agencies to support our work. The ASP has long been involved in this sort of advocacy as an organization, primarily through affiliation with larger groups. Our primary medium currently is through our affiliation with the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, which meets each year in May and December in Washington, DC in an office building that CSSP shares with the American Chemical Society. Meetings typically involve scheduled meetings with politicians and high-

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level policy makers, both through presentations and at receptions designed to enhance lobbying efforts. By combining our efforts with other scientific societies, many of which are much larger than the ASP, we represent several hundred thousand scientists and scientific workers. During the past year, I represented ASP and helped to draft a letter to Barack Obama urging him to include funding for agricultural research in his ‘‘Grand Challenges’’ program. Thus far, the Obama administration appears to be more favorably inclined toward the sciences, recognizing that science research and education are critical to America’s health. The CSSP is a good medium for promoting science in the United States. But we should seek more strategies to promote more funding for science, and particularly for parasitology research, in other countries, especially where parasitic diseases are major problems. Funding of parasitology research is an emphasis in governmental relations, but other political issues have become greater problems in recent years. Federal regulations administered by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration regarding shipping of pathogens through courier companies have been tightening recently, as American paranoia regarding bioterrorism increases. Unfortunately, the same sorts of misguided restrictions that have kept us from taking nail clippers aboard commercial aircraft in the wake of 9/11 are now impeding critical exchange of innocuous parasite cultures, or even preserved samples. Also of critical importance to parasitologists, the recent stiffening of immigration and visitation to the United States by foreign nationals has resulted in record numbers of visas being denied or delayed. This has included students who wish to study in the United States, but also scientists who seek to visit the United States for collaboration or networking (Bhattacharjee, 2009). This problem is significant for all sciences, but it is especially damaging to parasitology because of the global nature of the subjects that we study and because much of our research in medical, veterinary, and fisheries parasitology is actually more likely to be implemented in countries other than the United States and Canada. It seems to be that, on this shrinking planet, the parasites from other countries are finding it easier to gain access to the United States than are the parasitologists. 6) This leads us to my sixth suggestion, which is that we must build stronger international cooperation in parasitology research and education. In particular, we must reach out more frequently and more vigorously to collaborate with our colleagues in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The 2007 joint meeting between the ASP, the Sociedad Mexicana de Parasitologı´a (SMP), and the Parasitology Section of the Canadian Society of Zoologists, held in Me´rida, Mexico, was a milestone event and should be the first of many such joint meetings. Our meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2000 helped to bring in some of our Caribbean colleagues, but it was only the second meeting we have had there, and the only other one was in 1966—hardly a formula for continuity. Sadly, we have yet to meet jointly with any of our sister societies in South America. We should explore this possibility on some level, even if it does not involve a regular ASP annual meeting. Last year at the European parasitology meeting, I was notified by Mexican parasitologists that they are considering making a strong bid for the 2014 ICOPA. I recommend that we support them strongly in their bid and work

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to make such a meeting a focal point for bringing together record numbers of parasitologists from throughout the Americas. Wherever the next ICOPA convenes, perhaps we could develop a special satellite meeting specifically for the purpose of bringing together parasitologists from all the Americas to explore possibilities for further interactions. Of course, we should not limit our expansion of international connections to the Americas. As I pointed out previously, the ASP is already, perhaps, the most international of parasitology societies. In recent years, we have made further strides in not only gaining nominal members from other countries, but involving them in more significant roles. This year, I appointed one of our European members, Mariu´s Fuents from Spain, to the membership committee. I hope that this will continue and suggest that we enlarge that committee for the express purpose of appointing members from other regions of the world and charging those committee members with soliciting additional joiners. Eastern and Central Europe have historically had large and active groups of parasitologists, with whom we had little contact during the Cold War era, and who could add much to our society. I was very pleased that Jerry Esch recruited Toma´sˇ Scholz from the Czech Republic to replace me as an associate editor of the Journal of Parasitology so that I could focus on presidential duties. We should also seek more robust ways of involving our colleagues from Asia and Africa in the affairs of the society. This is a day of inexpensive and widely available communication, via e-mail and audio-video conferencing, one of the major benefits of a shrinking planet. Thus, we need not even travel to be more closely involved with each other. Finally, the electronic publication of the Journal of Parasitology and the ASP Newsletter presents opportunities for less-costly dissemination of the official organ of our society.

contemporaries, will rise to the occasion and push forward through a period of unprecedented discovery and progress. The ASP today claims among its members a great diversity of talented and committed scientists. Few, if any, can engage in all of the initiatives that I have outlined in this presentation. But all of us can engage in some of them, so that all of them ultimately are addressed. Perhaps the greatest strength of the ASP as an organization, and indeed of parasitology as a discipline, is their inherently multifaceted, multidisciplinary nature. If overspecialization predisposes an organization, like a species, to a high probability of ultimate extinction, then ASP is unlikely to become extinct any time soon. Our numbers and our clout may wax and wane, but if we resist the temptation to become a more eclectic society, marginalizing some of our interests in favor of others, we avoid the risk of diminishing both our relevance and our adaptability. So, we have a great future ahead of us, albeit on a continually shrinking planet. As the planet continues to shrink, we must continue to grow. But we will never outgrow the biological beauty and opportunities that parasites present to us, or the challenges and grave concerns with which parasitic diseases beset us. In closing my remarks, it makes me smile deep inside to imagine some future parasitologist reading my words one hundred years from now, chuckling at what an old-fashioned person I was, what a hopelessly large and cumbersome world I lived in, and what archaic technologies I struggled with. She will live on planet Earth, but it will be a much smaller planet than it is now. The parasites will still be there with her, challenging her at every level lest she lose her humility, but as with all the parasitologists that preceded her, she will still be among the most relevant human beings alive. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CONCLUDING REMARKS In conclusion, we are in a period of significant political and economic adversity. In the end, adversity can defeat us, beating us into submission and failure, or it can drive us to muster our resources and will to achieve great and lasting success. FDR’s greatness as a leader in politics was forged in the three-chambered furnace of the Great Depression, World War II, and the devastation of his own body by polio. He recognized the new smallness of our planet and the growing threat of parasitic diseases associated with that smallness. So, here we are in 2009 on a still-shrinking planet, with new parasitic diseases emerging even as wars are in full swing, climate disasters are looming, the global economy is sagging, and budgets for research and education around the world are austere. But the organization that we have built, the American Society of Parasitologists, was forged in the furnace of economic disaster and global conflict. Founded in 1924 between two World Wars, the fledgling ASP was barely off the ground when Black Thursday saw the stock markets tumble, signaling the dawn of the Great Depression. Yet, it was through this tumultuous period of history that great strides were made in understanding the nature of parasitism, from the surge in studies of parasite life cycles and taxonomy to the early emergence of immunoparasitology. Now, in the early 21st century, I believe we are entering a new period of challenges associated with parasitic diseases of humans and animals unlike any we have experienced since the first half of the 20th century. I also am hopeful that we, like Richard P. Strong, Henry Baldwin Ward, and their

It is difficult to begin acknowledging the contributions, help, and support of others through the years because there have been so many wonderful people who have been a part of my professional life. So I will not try to start naming them; many are here today and others are scattered around the world. But, I can start by saying that my wife, Denise Conn, has been a constant source of encouragement, in addition to being a valued collaborator with whom I have co-authored many research articles and dozens of conference presentations. I must also acknowledge posthumously my undergraduate mentors, Myrtle Fleming and Arthur West, who introduced me to parasites, and my doctoral advisor, Frank J. Etges. Other late parasitologists who illuminated the wonders of parasites to me and provided special guidance in my professional youth were Dick Lumsden and Wilbur Bullock. I have had many collaborators over the years, including Thaddeus Graczyk, whom I thank for introducing my address today. I also thank Gonzalo Giribet, Curator of Invertebrates at Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), for supporting my efforts to restore MCZ’s focus on parasites following many years in the background. My many students, of course, have provided much incentive for continuing my work. Among my former students, I especially thank Laura Harrington for coming to speak about her great work with dengue at the presidential symposium today and Stephen Rich, who could not come this week, but who is doing such great work on the evolution of malaria.

LITERATURE CITED AGUIRRE, A. A., AND G. M. TABOR. 2008. Global factors driving emerging infectious diseases: Impact on wildlife populations. Animal Biodiversity and Emerging Diseases: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1149: 1–3. BARTA, J. R. 2002. Coming in from the cold: Parasitology and the Canadian Society of Zoologists. Comparative Parasitology 69: 146– 150.


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