This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A three-month Fulbright U.S. Scholar trip to Argentina wasn't just about bringing Texas know-how to South America for Gabriel Hamer, Ph.D., a Texas A&M AgriLife Research entomologist and professor in the Department of Entomology in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
His time in Argentina was spent learning from scientists who have been fighting Chagas disease far longer than he has. Hamer's research and teaching at AgriLife Research broadly investigate the ecology and control of vector-borne infectious diseases in humans, wild animals and domestic animals. He has studied vector-host interactions that lead to parasite amplification and increased disease risk.
He also develops and evaluates vector control approaches aimed at reducing human and animal disease. Hamer spent the spring with the research team in the Eco-Epidemiology Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires. These scientists have spent multiple decades studying Chagas disease and its insect vectors, triatomines, known as "kissing bugs" in the U.S. and "vinchucas" in Argentina.
The trip opens the door to expanding U.S. scientific understanding of Chagas disease. Hamer was among researchers who contributed to a multi-institutional perspective article urging public health acknowledgment that Chagas is endemic in the U.S. and poses a threat to human and companion animal health. Continued research in South America and by U.S.-based scientists is important because some disease-carrying triatomines have developed resistance to insecticides.
"The vast majority of the research on these vectors and the parasite has been done in Latin America," Hamer said. "In a lot of ways, we in the U.S. are just catching up. It benefits us to gain experience and build collaborations with people in places like Argentina." That exchange runs both ways, Hamer said, describing the concept as "bilateral learning." It was an opportunity to build new relationships, share expertise and lay the groundwork for research that propels mutually beneficial discoveries.
His Argentine colleague, Victoria Cardinal, Ph.D., is now under review to join Texas A&M's graduate faculty so she can serve on graduate student committees. Timara Vereen, Hamer's doctoral student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Program, spent a month with Hamer at the Eco-Epidemiology Lab in Argentina's Chaco province. Hamer deployed solar-powered kissing bug traps he has spent the past six years developing.
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