Using the local immune response to identify vaccine and diagnostic candidates for Asian schistosomiasis: a novel phage display approach

Schistosomiasis is one of the most important parasitic diseases in the world, causing high levels of morbidity in the approximately 200 million people that are infected. Chemical therapeutic treatment of infection is currently the only effective mechanism to combat the disease; however this treatment regime has limitations, most significantly that treatment does not prevent re-infection. This thesis developed a new method to identify parasite molecules that could be developed as vaccine and better diagnostic reagents to help combat this insidious disease.