Connect Sign InIntroduction to Blood Parasites: It May Be a Bloody Mess, But It Is Worth Knowing
Blood parasites represent a global burden of disease, particularly due to malaria being a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Blood parasites are critical to detect and treat and require different techniques for not only lab testing but also specimen collection. The most common blood parasites are reviewed in this presentation with a strong focus on best practice for microscopy as well as adjunct methods of diagnosis for unique clinical presentations.
Dr. Marc R. Couturier is a medical director of emerging public health crises and microbial immunology, parasitology and fecal testing at ARUP Laboratories and a professor of pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Couturier graduated from the University of Alberta with a doctorate degree in bacteriology. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Alberta Provincial Laboratory for Public Health and a medical microbiology fellowship at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Couturier is certified by the American Board of Medical Microbiology. He has received the Outstanding Teaching Award in Clinical Pathology, the Bill Roberts Award for Excellence in Laboratory Medicine, and the Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Young Investigators Award. His research interests include helicobacter pylori diagnostics and developing improved diagnostics for emerging agents of infectious gastroenteritis.
Blaine Mathison is currently a scientist in the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology at ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City. Mr. Mathison has been studying parasitology for over 20 years, including working at the Institute of Parasitology at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic, the Arizona State Health Department, and the CDC, where he managed the DPDx website for nine years. He has published extensively on parasitology and entomology—the latter is also a personal hobby.
