Echinostomes are medically- and veterinary-important parasitic flatworms that invade humans
domestic animals and wildlife and also parasitize in their larval stages numerous invertebrate
and cold-blooded vertebrate hosts. The interest in echinostomes in parasitology and general
biology comes from several areas: (1) Human infections (2) Experimental models (3) Animal
infections (4) Systematics. The application of novel techniques is moving the echinostomes to
the frontline of parasitology in fields such as systematics immunobiology in vertebrate and
invertebrate organisms and proteomics among others. The Biology of Echinostomes demonstrates
the application of new techniques to a group of trematodes that may serve to obtain information
of great value in parasitology and general biology. The book includes basic topics such as
biology and systematics as well as more novel topics such as immunobiology proteomics and
genomics of echinostomes. The authors of each chapter emphasize their content with: (i) the
most novel information obtained (ii) analysis of this information in a more general context
(i.e. general parasitology) and (iii) future perspectives in view of the information
presented. The subjects are analyzed from a modern point of view considering aspects such as
applications of novel techniques and an analysis of host-parasite interactions.
