Unitec’s School of Environmental and Animal Sciences is proud to celebrate one of its own as lecturer Kate Harder prepares to take the next exciting step in her academic journey beginning her PhD at James Cook University in association with the Applied Molecular Solutions (AMS) research centre.
Supervised by a team of parasitology and molecular experts, Dr Richard Bradbury, Dr Constantin Constantinoiu, and Applied Molecular Solution’s own Dr Sarah Wells, Kate will be diving into a significantly under-researched area in New Zealand: the feline lungworm, Aelurostrongylus abstrusus.
Her research aims to shed light on the prevalence of this elusive parasite in local feline populations, a topic with growing clinical relevance in veterinary medicine. Using a multi-pronged diagnostic approach, including faecal flotation, formalin acetate sedimentation, and (where possible) clinical trials of tracheal washes, Kate hopes to assess not only how widespread the infection may be in Auckland, but also whether less invasive detection methods can be effectively used as alternatives to tracheal washing.
This project builds on Kate’s growing experience in genetic diagnostics, honed through her work in the AMS laboratory. With a passion for turning laboratory data into real-world veterinary insight, Kate is enthusiastic about applying molecular tools to improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealand’s companion animals. We wish Kate every success as she embarks on this ambitious and much-needed research and look forward to seeing her discoveries make their way from the lab bench to the veterinary clinic.