Dr Ruth Kirk
Faculties, departments and locations
- Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education
- Department of Applied and Human Sciences
- School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry
- Penrhyn Road
Visiting Senior Fellow in Parasitology
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
I am a eukaryotic parasitologist, specialising in molecular identification and ecology of aquatic helminths. Early research focused on introduced parasites of fish such as Sanguinicola inermis in carp (PhD, Royal Holloway University of London and Thames Water), Anguillicoloides crassus in eels (Leverhulme Trust Research Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Exeter and Royal Holloway) and Atractolytocestus huronensis in carp (Research Fellowship, Kingston University). I worked as an aquatic consultant and then joined Kingston University as a research fellow, progressing to associate professor. I have supervised MSc and PhD research projects on schistosomiasis, fish parasites, histology, cercarial dermatitis and led the UK Digenean Diversity Project which has resulted in molecular identification of many digenean parasites of freshwater snail vectors in the UK for the first time. I am also generating a UK Freshwater Fish Parasites Database with my colleague, Dr Bernice Brewster. I am currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at Kingston University.
Qualifications
- PhD Fish Parasitology (University of London)
- BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences (University of London)
Domains
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
My research publications can be accessed from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruth-Kirk/research. My current research focuses on:
- UK Digenean Diversity Project - using phylogenetics to identify digenean parasites transmitted by freshwater snail vectors
- UK Freshwater Fish Parasites Database with Dr Bernice Brewster
- Incidence, impacts and assessing risk of cercarial dermatitis
- Cell signalling in schistosomes
- Helminth parasites of freshwater fish, particularly introduced species
Specialisms
- Aquatic parasitology
Scholarly affiliations
- Member of the British Society for Parasitology
- Fellow of the Linnean Society
- Fellow of the Zoological Society of London
I am an external and internal assessor of grant applications for international research councils and provide peer reviews for many life science journals and books.
Gallery of work
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Life cycle of avian Schistosomatidae parasites
Avian schistosomatid parasites cause pathology in a variety of birds and are agents of human cercarial dermatitis.
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Cercaria of Trichobilharzia franki
Cercariae of avian schistosomatids like T. franki emerge from snails and swim in the water to find a bird host, but may accidentally penetrate human skin causing cercarial dermatitis.
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Life cycle of Schistosoma mansoni - an agent of human schistosomiasis
Human schistosomiasis is an acute and chronic disease that affects over 200 million people, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas of the world.
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Scanning electron micrograph of Schistosoma bovis - an agent of ruminant schistosomiasis
Hybrid forms of S. bovis-S. haematobium can infect humans and are reported in West Africa and Corsica.
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Life cycle of echinostomes
Many types of echinostome parasites cause a gastrointestinal disease known as echinostomiasis. People can be infected when they eat infected raw or undercooked aquatic products like fish or molluscs.
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Cercaria of Echinostoma revolutum, an echinostome parasite
Echinostoma revolutum is distributed worldwide, but only causes disease when raw or undercooked second intermediate hosts (e.g. fish, molluscs, frogs) are traditionally eaten as in E and SE Asia.
