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The new gateway for the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology (WCIP) provides a deeper understanding of parasites. Vickie Curtis, Public Engagement Manager at WCIP, and Andy Waters, research group leader and gateway advisor for WCIP, tell us more about the gateway and how this open research hub can benefit the community and could speed up the development of new treatments.

Vickie Curtis is the Public Engagement Manager at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, based at the University of Glasgow. She is responsible for planning and co-ordinating the Centre’s public engagement activities and identifying opportunities for research staff.

Andy Waters, Professor in Biomedical and Life Sciences, and gateway advisor, whose research interests cover a polyomics approach to understanding the molecular developmental biology associated with sexual development, the phenomenon of translational repression during sexual development and its influence on the fertilized zygote. Triggers for gametocytogenesis.

“Wellcome Open Research represents one very interesting and valuable approach to the democratisation of science. Its twist is to provide a platform for many different outputs that would not normally sit easily under one roof. The WCIP portal represents a natural extension of this principle allowing the user as well as the Centre to present all of its contributions to Wellcome Open Research in one, more easily accessible site. This serves not only to showcase WCIP contributions but hopefully stimulates Centre members to enhance their visibility through further contributions, an outcome to their advantage and that of our community.” – Andy Waters

Tell us about the work that takes place at the centre

The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology aims to develop new approaches to control parasites and the diseases they cause.

Our mission is to develop a deeper understanding of parasites in order to identify new targets for therapeutics. We study parasites from several genera and focus on core processes, many of which show common mechanisms in the different parasites.

We have been a Wellcome Centre since 1999 and our research continues to develop and broaden. We have new programmes examining immunity to helminths (this includes parasitic worms such as schistosomes) and we have created a national metabolomics facility, enhanced our imaging capabilities, and expanded our work in drug discovery.

Why create this gateway for Wellcome Centre for integrative parasitology on Wellcome Open Research?

This is an impressive platform that allows immediate publication and open peer review of our research, as well as our original source data. We hope that other Wellcome centres and researchers will follow suit.

What subject areas will it cover?

The gateway will cover our research activities exploring parasite biology and the associated translational activities, such as disease intervention and molecular epidemiology. This includes the following areas:

Toxoplasma; Plasmodium; Trypanosomes; Parasite drug resistance; Helminths; Host parasite immune interactions; Bioinformatics; Population genetics; Parasite Imaging; Host parasite Interactions

How will it help the centre’s research agenda?

It will help to increase the transparency of our research and allow PhD students and early career researchers to build up their publication record. Particularly if they have null / negative findings.

How do you see this benefiting the research community and society?

Access to original source data will help to promote reproducibility, and open peer review is to be encouraged in research. Open access to research (and data) is an important step in increasing the overall transparency of research for those within and outwith the research community.

Publishing our work in this way will help us to build trust with our different audiences and stakeholders. Publishing through the Gateway may also increase the opportunities for collaborations.

What do you hope it will achieve?

We hope that it will support a new approach for publishing research findings that judges the actual output of research, rather than journal impact values. As it is the intrinsic value of research that is important, our gateway on this open research platform with Wellcome helps to shift the focus in scientific publishing to a practice that incentivises, recognises and rewards good research.