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Dallas scientist to receive $11M for research into deadly parasitic disease

James Collins of UT Southwestern is studying schistosomiasis, a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people around the world.

James Collins never set out to study blood flukes.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Collins was teasing out the mysterious sex lives of planarians, a kind of flatworm found worldwide, mostly in freshwater. These creatures are hermaphrodites that reproduce asexually by tearing themselves apart, though they sometimes mate with each other.

“What I was doing at the time was asking, do these guys have any sort of hormones that might control this sort of process?” said Collins, now 43 and an associate professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

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He found there was one, in fact, but planarians weren’t the only ones making it. Blood flukes — distant flatworm cousins that cause schistosomiasis, one of the world’s most deadly parasitic diseases — produce the same hormone when they procreate.

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Schistosomiasis affects almost 240 million people globally and more than 700 million people live in endemic areas, which include parts of South America, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, according to the World Health Organization. The agency estimates nearly 12,000 people worldwide die each year from schistosomiasis, though this number is likely an underestimate.

Sarah Cobb, left, studies a sample through a microscope as James Collins, an associate...
Sarah Cobb, left, studies a sample through a microscope as James Collins, an associate professor at UT Southwestern, watches at a UT Southwestern facility in Dallas, Texas, on July 19, 2024. (Jason Janik/Special Contributor)(Jason Janik / Special Contributor)
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Over a decade since learning about the hormonal connection between planarians and blood flukes, Collins was named Tuesday as one of the 26 new scientists selected from across the nation for the Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Program, which funds biomedical research. His lab will receive about $11 million over a seven-year period to better understand the blood fluke and work to hopefully combat the devastating effects of schistosomiasis.

“We are delighted that Dr. Collins has been selected for this high honor and is joining the ranks of 13 other HHMI scientists at UT Southwestern whose bold ideas and research hold great promise for future advances,” said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, president of UT Southwestern, in a statement.

Humans become infected with blood flukes and develop schistosomiasis when they drink or come in contact with water contaminated with the flatworm’s larvae. The female blood fluke lays hundreds to thousands of eggs per day inside the human body, or about one egg every one to five minutes, Collins said.

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The body tries to get rid of the eggs by attacking them with immune cells, antibodies and chemicals. But this only causes scarring that traps the eggs in tissues such as those in the liver, intestines or even the brain.

Early signs of schistosomiasis include itchiness and skin rash. If the disease goes untreated — the gold standard treatment being a drug called praziquantel — it can cause serious health problems and even death. In infected children, schistosomiasis can cause anemia, malnutrition, stunted growth and learning disabilities.

So far, the only effective ways to prevent schistosomiasis are by sanitizing contaminated water and by avoiding drinking or bathing in such water. But access to clean water and adequate sanitation infrastructure remains a pressing public health issue in much of the developing world. And because of climate change, there are concerns that schistosomiasis may spread outside its usual geographic areas through the snails that are the blood fluke’s intermediate host, an organism that harbors the parasite during its life cycle.

For Collins, one way of combating schistosomiasis is by preventing the female blood fluke from laying eggs. To do that, he and his colleagues at UT Southwestern have set their sights on the male blood fluke.

In the last few years, the researchers have discovered that male blood flukes are responsible for causing the sexual maturity of female blood flukes.

“The female, in the absence of a male, doesn’t develop,” Collins said. “Her sexual organs don’t develop, she doesn’t lay eggs.”

When the male comes into contact with the female, wrapping his body around hers, he releases a molecule called beta-alanyl-tryptamine, which switches on the female’s reproductive development. “You can actually just take this molecule and put it on the females and they will sexually mature without the males,” Collins said.

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As a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, Collins aims to further his research into how this signaling between the male and female blood fluke influences their reproductive biology. Any insights could lead to better ways to prevent and treat schistosomiasis and shed light on parasitic diseases caused by other flatworms, such as tapeworms.

Clinical developments from this research could mitigate the health and socioeconomic burdens of the disease. Collins is among the few researchers investigating blood flukes and schistosomiasis in Texas, he said.

“For me, I have always been a biologist and I love biology no matter where it comes from,” Collins said, noting that was one of the reasons he was drawn to this research. “Here’s a case where I can study the kind of biology I love but at the same time, give back and try to make a difference in people’s lives.”

CORRECTION, 1:37 p.m., July 23, 2024: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of the grant awarded to James Collins based on information from UT Southwestern. It is about $11 million.

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Miriam Fauzia is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.