Each year infections of animals and plants by parasitic nematodes cause many billions of dollars of agricultural damage. Over a billion people worldwide, particularly in developing nations, are infected by nematodes and suffer from the resulting debilitating diseases. Currently, only a few investigators address problems of parasitic nematodes using C. elegans. To encourage and facilitate more interactions between the C. elegans and parasitic nematode communities, a workshop was held at the 2013 International C. elegans meetings in which experts in plant, animal and human parasitic nematodes spoke on the life history and unique biology of these parasitic species and on outstanding issues in their field. A key goal of the session was to make C. elegans scientists aware of the issues and problems that parasitic nematode researchers face and pave the way for applying the powerful approaches and technologies that have advanced C. elegans research to parasitic nematodes. The abstracts of these talks are published in this issue of the Worm Breeders Gazette.
The organizing committee:
Martin Chalfie, Chair
Susan Strome
Barton Slatko
William Sullivan
