William C. Campbell
Drew University
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Primary Section: 61, Animal, Nutritional, and Applied Microbial Sciences Secondary Section: 44, Microbial Biology Membership Type:
Emeritus
(elected 2002)
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Research Interests
My life in science has been devoted to the study of parasitic infections. The objects of my investigative affection have included protozoan and arthropod parasites, but I have always had a particular fondness for helminthes, the parasitic worms. Apart from forays into helminth immunology, bionomics, and cryogenics, my research has been focused on experimental chemotherapy. This has led to laboratory biodiversity, with major projects devoted to schistosome and nematode agents of human disease, and with similar attention lavished on flukes of cattle, tapeworms of sheep, roundworms of ruminants, and heartworm of dogs. Research in an industrial setting, where interdisciplinary collaboration was a way of life, gave me the enormous satisfaction of participating in the process whereby molecules become drugs and move, sometimes, from laboratory bench to field or clinic. Among the new drugs that went on to widespread practical use were thiabendazole, cambendazole, rafoxanide, clorsulon, and ivermectin. Now in an academic setting, I try to share my enthusiasm for parasites with youthful scientists in the classroom and in the research laboratory. Although my allegiance to particular parasites may have been fickle, my involvement in the affairs of Trichinella, the agent of trichinellosis (trichinosis), has been my constant avocation and delight.
