报告题目：The impact of Toxoplasma gondii on host behaviour: can this parasite play a role in some cases of human schizophrenia?
报告时间：2015年11月20日下午2：00
报告地点：403-3120室
报告人：Prof. Joanne P. Webster（伦敦大学终身教授；帝国理工学院荣誉教授）
你的思想被宠物“劫持”了吗？想象一下，如果有某种寄生虫生活在你的大脑里，这个外来闯入者甚至有能力改变你的神经化学功能，操纵你的想法和行为，甚至有可能让你失去理智……
这是幻想小说中的情节吗？不，这种“精神劫持者”真的存在。这种寄生虫侵入并占据了世界上数十亿人的大脑，还有更多人面临被侵入的风险。比如，弓形虫在一些宿主体内就扮演了“精神劫持者”角色……
报告人
Prof. Webster’s research interests are focused primarily on the evolution, epidemiology, behaviour and control of helminth and protozoan parasites of humans and animals. She also holds an Honorary Professorship at Imperial College London’s Faculty of Medicine. She is Head of the WHO working group for Praziquantel Resistance and is on the Executive/Management Boards of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) and the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research (LCNTDR).
After gaining a double First class B.Sc. hons, her D.Phil at the University of Oxford examined the epidemiology of zoonotic disease. Her doctoral research also developed a novel line of research focusing on the impact of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii on host behaviour and its association with chronic disease. After just over a year working as a clinical scientist at the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) in London, she returned to Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow, EPA Cephalosporin JRF, Lecturer in Infectious Diseases and finally as a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF).
She accepted a Readership at Imperial College in 2003 and was promoted to a personal tenured Chair in Parasitic Disease Epidemiology in 2006. The key motivation for this move was the unique opportunity to be co-Director of the then newly formed Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI). In this role she has been responsible from the outset for the design, implementation and evaluation of large-scale sustainable Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) control programmes, with a focus on schistosomiasis, across sub-Saharan Africa. These activities have attracted over $155 million in funding and provided over 273 million chemotherapeutic treatments. In October 2014 She joined the Royal Veterinary College, at the start of her new One Health ZELS research programme.
Professor Webster’s research activities have been awarded a number of high profile Prizes and Medals, including The Chalmers Memorial Medal，The Queen’s Anniversary Prize and Medal，The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of animals in research (NC3Rs) Prize，and The CA Wright Medal.
Prof. Webster is currently on the Editorial board of four high impact leading journals, has presented 69 Invited International Key Note/Plenary and Guest lectures overseas, and has produced about 150 Peer Reviewed Publications in international journals.
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, Norfolk Place, London, W2 1PG.