Parasite council honors Bowman, Blagburn

The Companion Animal Parasite Council is recognizing CAPC founding board members Dwight Bowman, PhD, and Byron Blagburn, PhD, for their contributions to veterinary medicine and outstanding achievements in the field of parasitology.

A dinner is being held in honor of Drs. Blagburn and Bowman on Feb. 11 in Irving, Texas, that will also be attended by Dr. Lori Teller, AVMA president-elect. Dr. José Arce, AVMA president, also extended congratulations to the two recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Thirty years ago, there was no such thing as routine parasite control,” CAPC said in a statement. “Now we have many options for easy testing and prevention to keep our pets protected year-round. Drs. Bowman and Blagburn have not only changed the lives for many pets, but they have also changed the human-animal bond by protecting both human and animal health.”

Dr. Bowman is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. His research interests are soil-transmitted parasites, parasites of wildlife, visceral larva migrans, host response to soil-transmitted pathogens, and detection of soil-transmitted parasites.

He has received corporate and federal funding throughout his career to study animal parasitology.

Dr. Blagburn is a professor in the Department of Pathobiology at Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine, where he oversees the clinical parasitology diagnostic laboratory.

His areas of research are protozoal diseases and chemotherapeutic methods of parasite control.

Like Dr. Bowman, Dr. Blagburn’s work has many supporters, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.