Department of Microbiology

Gema Alama-Bermejo

	Office	Nash Hall 514
	Phone	541-737-9664
	Email	gema.alama@gmail.com
	Education	Ph.D. University of Valencia, Spain

Research Interests

My primary research interest is aquatic parasites in marine and freshwater habitats.  I am especially interested in parasites of the phylum Myxozoa, a group of parasitic cnidarians. Myxozoans have a complex life cycle including a vertebrate host, mainly fish, and an invertebrate host, usually annelids. I study different aspects of their life cycle and biology of these parasites: morphology and functionality, development, transmission, seasonality and host-parasite interactions, like the pathology that myxozoans can cause in fisheries and aquaculture. I find absolutely fascinating the motility that these parasites can show in some stages of their complex life cycles.

I completed my PhD in Spain studying how myxozoans and trematodes affect cultured and wild fish in the Mediterranean, where my passion for myxozoans began. After my PhD, I began my first postdoc at the Institute of Parasitology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic were I discovered a complex of cryptic species of myxozoans infecting carp and goldfish in Czech ponds. Currently, I am doing a postdoc fellowship in Dr. Jerri Bartholomew’s lab, to work on the Ceratomyxa shasta system. My current project focuses on the study of virulence factors in C. shasta and different virulent-level genotypes in salmonids.

Funding

University of Valencia-Consellería d’Educació, Cultura i Esport, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain
Czech Science Foundation (GACR), Czech Republic

Publications

Alama-Bermejo G., Šíma R., Raga J.A. & Holzer A.S. (2013) Understanding myxozoan infection dynamics in the sea: Seasonality and transmission of Ceratomyxa puntazzi. International Journal for Parasitology, 43, (9), 771-780

Alama-Bermejo G., Bron J.E., Raga J.A. & Holzer A.S. (2012) 3D morphology, ultrastructure and development of Ceratomyxa puntazzi stages: first insights into the mechanisms of motility and budding in the Myxozoa. PLoS ONE, 7 (2): e32679

Fig 1. Sampling with a plankton net to quantify myxozoans in the sea water (Alama-Bermejo et al. 2013).	Fig 2. Sea cage where the fish were exposed to para- sites (Alama-Bermejo et al. 2013).	Fig 3. Several Ceratomyxa puntazzi stages with a pattern of accumulation of F-actin in the hyaline area at the anterior end of the parasites where the filopodia are located (Alama-Bermejo et al. 2012).

Hernández-Orts J.S., Alama-Bermejo G., Crespo E.A., García N.A., Raga J:A. & Montero F.E. (2012) Breizacanthus aznari n. sp. (Acanthocephala: Arhythmacanthidae) from the Banded cusk-eel Raneya brasiliensis (Kaup, 1856) (Ophidiiformes: Ophidiidae) of the Argentine Patagonian coast. Folia Parasitologica, 59: 264-271

Hernández-Orts J.S., Alama-Bermejo G., Carrillo J.M., García N.A., Crespo E.A., Raga J.A. & Montero F.E. (2012). Aporocotyle mariachristinae n. sp., and A. ymakara Villalba & Fernandez, 1986 (Digenea: Aporocotylidae) of the pink cusk-eel Genypterus blacodes (Ophidiformes: Ophidiidae) from the Patagonia, Argentina. Parasite, 19: 319-330

Alama-Bermejo G., Raga J.A. & Holzer A.S. (2011b) Host-parasite relationship of Ceratomyxa puntazzi n. sp. (Myxozoa: Myxosporea) and sharpsnout seabream Diplodus puntazzo (Walbaum, 1792) from the Mediterranean with first data on ceratomyxid host specificity in sparids. Veterinary Parasitology, 182, 181-192

Alama-Bermejo G., Montero F.E., Raga J.A. & Holzer A.S. (2011a) Skoulekia meningialis n. gen., n. sp. (Digenea: Aporocotylidae Odhner, 1912) a parasite surrounding the brain of the Mediterranean common two-banded seabream Diplodus vulgaris (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817) (Teleostei: Sparidae): Description, molecular phylogeny, habitat and pathology. Parasitology International, 60, 34-44

Alama-Bermejo G., Cuadrado M., Raga J.A. & Holzer A.S. (2009) Morphological and molecular redescription of the myxozoan Unicapsula pflugfelderi from two teleost hosts in the Mediterranean. A review of the genus Unicapsula Davis 1924. Journal of Fish Diseases, 32: 335-350