University has got the bug about Fiona

Acclaimed academic will give talk in Paisley next month

27.05.2017 An academic who is big in bugs is to give her inaugural lecture in Paisley.

Professor Fiona Henriquez, who is University of the West of Scotland’s Professor of Parasitology, will give a public lecture dubbed ‘ Humans and Amoebae: a complicated relationship in our Health and in the Environment’.

This will see Professor Henriquez highlight aspects of her career so far that have influenced the advancement of knowledge of bugs that can cause disease in humans and in aquaculture.

She will also talk about her collaborations with health clinics and industry.

Professor Henriquez, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Higher Education Academy and Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, told the Paisley Daily Express: “I am delighted to be delivering this public lecture and to have the opportunity to provide academics and members of the public with an insight into the complex relationship between humans and amoebae.”

The academic, who leads the Infection and Microbiology Research Group at UWS, is currently focused on leading interdisciplinary research, teaching and mentoring early career researchers and PhD students in the area of infectious disease, immunology and biomedical science.

Her interest in Acanthamoeba as an “opportunistic pathogen” of the eye started in 2003.

She joined UWS in November 2005 as a lecturer in Immunology, but the universitym says she saw the opportunity to bring Parasitology to the university’s Biomedical Science and Applied Bioscience programmes, establishing important parasitology and immunology research skills in the curriculum and setting up important networks with NHS biomedical laboratories.

Her research on amoeba pathogens – Acanthamoeba and Paramoeba – has gained international recognition and has also made a considerable impact on public, industrial and health service engagement.

She added: “I hope that this lecture will give the opportunity to see how diverse the microscopic world is that surrounds us and how it can impact on our daily lives.”

The event, which is being held in Room P118 at the Paisley campus of the university and gets underway at 7.30pm on Thursday, June 8, is free, with places being allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

To register to attend this event, email uwsevents@uws.ac.uk