How an obscure sexually transmitted parasite tangos with the immune system
Trichomonas vaginalis also enlists helpers to battle other microbes
TRICKY PARASITE Trichomonas vaginalis has a funny shape and some clever ways of infecting people.
David M. Phillips/Science Source
Frances Mercer runs a fight club.
In one corner, the parasite Trichomonas vaginalis, which causes a widespread sexually transmitted infection that many people have never heard of. In the other corner are neutrophils, the immune system cells best equipped to take down the aggressor.
Watching the two battle it out, Mercer, an immunoparasitologist at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, has learned a lot about the parasite.