This volume of KOSMOS is about the ani-mals that are parasitic in man and aniani-mals.
There are nearly as many definitions of parasites as there are authors writing about parasitism. One of them (LAPAGE1963) says: “ a parasite is a living organism which esta-blishes a physiological association with the tissues, on the surface of, or inside the body of another organism, which is usually bigger and stronger than the parasite and always belongs to a different species, the purpose of this association being primarily to provide food for the parasite; this other organism is called the host of the parasite and the host always suffers some degree of injury, as a re-sult of the association with the parasite and always reacts to some degree against the pa-rasite and the injury that it suffers.” The host influences the evolution of its parasites; con-versely parasites influence the evolution of their hosts in terms of both macro and mi-cro-evolution.
The scope of parasitology has been much debated and there is no general agreement what it should include. Some authors argue that all macro and micro organisms living in-side or on the surface of the host, i.e. viru-ses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, helminthes and arthropods should be included. Today para-sitology is mainly concerned with the study of parasitic protozoa and helminthes (Platy-helminthes and Nematodes) that parasitize humans and animals (not Plant Nematodes) and parasitic arthropods.
The primary focus of parasitology is to study the parasite itself, aiming at under-standing how the parasite functions in or-der to be able to control parasitic diseases.
The host-parasite relationship is equally im-portant and includes all disciplines that deal with such relations. Parasitology as well as many other sciences is multidisciplinary in nature and parasitologists must have some knowledge in many of the related disciplines (ecology, immunology, molecular biology, physiology, biochemistry) in order to be fa-miliar with the advances in their own field. Contemporary parasitology uses molecular biology techniques which can be divided into biochemical, antibody and DNA based analysis for diagnosis and research. Genes or cDNA of parasite enzymes or surface molecules are being cloned and analysed in search for novel targets for drugs and vac-cines. Several full genome sequencing proj-ects are in progress, including genomes of the most pathogenic parasites of humans and domestic animals such as Plasmodium falciparum, Schistosoma mansoni, Fasciola hepatica, Necator americanus, Onchocerca volvulus, and Trichinella spiralis.
From the very beginning of the evolu-tion of parasitology as a novel discipline of science in the XIX century, Polish scientists have been deeply involved in this field of re-search. In Poland professors: M. Kowalewski (1857–1919), M. M. Siedlecki (1873–1940), K. Janicki (1876–1932) and Witold Stefański (1891–1973) greatly contributed to the de-velopment of parasitology. The last one es-tablished the Polish School of Veterinary Parasitology. In 1952 Professor Stefanski also organized the Department of Parasitology of the Polish Academy of Sciences which in 1980 was transformed into the Institute of Parasitology and received the name of its
A
NDRZEJM
ALCZEWSKI, H
ALINAW
ĘDRYCHOWICZInstytut Parazytologii im. W. Stefańskiego PAN Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warszawa
e-mail: amalczip@twarda.pan.pl halinaw@twarda.pan.pl
THE FASCINATING WORLD OF PARASITES — INTRODUCTION
Tom 54 2005
Numer 1 (266)
Strony 3–4
4 ANDRZEJ MALCZEWSKI, HALINA WĘDRYCHOWICZ
founder and first director. The Polish Soci-ety of Parasitology (PSP) was founded more than 50 years ago. The PSP has nearly four hundred members and creates a forum for discussions on all aspects of parasitology dur-ing congresses or in the journal published by the Society (Wiadomości Parazytologiczne).
Due to an intense activity of Polish para-sitologists on the international forum, both the World Federation and the European Fed-eration of Parasitologists were created. It was the polish parasitologists who organized the 4th International Congress of Parasitology
(ICOPA IV) in Warsaw in 1978 and in the year 2000 the 8th European Multicoloquium
of Parasitology (EMOP VIII) in Poznań.
At the present, research on biology of parasites, molecular mechanisms of host-para-site interactions, DNA based systematics and diagnosis as well as on recombinant anti-hel-minth vaccines are being conducted at more than 60 laboratories. Students can learn para-sitology in more than 20 universities. The Witold Stefański Institute of Parasitology of the Polish Academy of Sciences plays a cen-tral role in the initiation of new research di-rections in Poland as well as possesses the biggest collection of books and journals de-voted to all fields of parasitology.
