Turkey’s first research center to study vectors

KAYSERİ - Anatolia News Agency

Many diseases that people and animals contract via carriers such as mites, ticks, fleas and flies will be studied at the first center dedicated to the purpose in Turkey, located at Erciyes University in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

Such carriers of disease are known as “vectors,” said the center’s director and head of the parasitology department at Erciyes University’s Veterinary Faculty, Professor Abdullah İnci.

“The center is Turkey’s first and only center in this field. It will continue its activities with working groups of academics from Turkish universities. Similar centers exist in the U.S. and other countries. The center at Emory University is the most developed, and our center is modeled on this one,” İnci said.

A symposium will be held Sept. 9 and 10 to promote the center and its work, İnci said. It will be held in Nevşehir, and it will be attended by many renowned academics, including Professor Peter Adler from Clemson University, Professor Kevin Njabo of UCLA, Professor Yasuko Rikihisa of the Ohio State University, Dr. Elmer Gray from the University of Georgia, and Professor Kosta Mumcuoğlu of Israel’s Ibrani University.