Parasites – Eating Us Alive! BIOL 2268: Medical Microbiology Lab
Due in D2L Assignment folder on Tuesday, March 5, 11:59 pm
NOTE: This content associates with Chapter 12 in the lecture course.
Instructions: Complete the following lab exercise assignment (type your answers into the document using a different colored font). Upload your document (as a Word or PDF file) to the Assignment folder in our D2L Brightspace lab site by the due date indicated above. You can find the assignment folder by clicking on “Assessments” in the navigation bar on the homepage of our lab D2L course site, then selecting “Assignments” from the dropdown menu. 15 points
1. Read through the assignment questions, and then watch the following videos (~ 45 minutes total in length). Please note that the videos include video footage of internal parasites and describes various parasitic infections in humans. Suggested browser for viewing the videos: Chrome
If the links below don’t work when you Ctrl + click on them, please copy and paste them into your browser.
Part 1 (7:26 min)
Part 2 (6:22 min)
Part 3 (7:25 min) – Hey sushi, sashimi eaters!
Part 4 (6:05 min)
Part 5 (8:24 min)
Part 6 (9:46 min)
2. List one “fun fact”
from each part of the video (parts 2-6 above) that you found interesting. (3 points)
3. Why is it nearly impossible to develop a
vaccine for parasitic diseases? (1 point)
4. List 1 behavior,
in your daily life, that puts
you at risk for contracting a parasitic infection. Is there anything you can do to decrease the risk? If so, what? (2 points)
5. List 1 parasitic disease
discussed in the video that is
directly transmissible
person-to-person. What are its symptoms? How is it transmitted? What precautions should be taken when caring for family members or patients with this transmissible parasitic infection? (4 points)
6. Describe 1 parasitic disease “success story” (i.e. prevention or global eradication of a parasite or disease) described in the video. What is the parasite? What disease/symptoms did it cause? Why is it a success story? What was done to prevent infection with the parasite? (2 points) NOTE: Haslan Bostwick recovering from malaria, which is awesome, is not a success story in the context of this question.
7. List 2 challenges in preventing and/or curing the disease caused by
Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. (2 points)
8. Write a 1 paragraph reaction to the videos…what does your gut tell you? (1 point)
Used with permission and adapted from: S. Petermann 2020. 2 of 2
