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Animal Environmental Management Lab
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A lab exploring how protozoan parasites and viruses infect cells.
AboutAbout the lab
Tackling disease and environmental problems caused by microorganisms.
The Animal Environmental Management lab aims to solve problems brought about by microorganisms, such as disease in animals and abnormalities in environmental hygiene, from the perspectives of veterinary medicine and microbiology.
Focusing on infectious diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis, the lab investigates how pathogenic microorganisms infect host cells and multiply in them.
The lab also takes up resource recycling through composting and methanation, and wastewater treatment using microbial fuel cells, as research topics.
The lab is based mainly at the Kawatabi Field Science Center.
Key terms
- Protozoa
- Single-celled microorganisms, some of which parasitize animals. Malaria parasites and Toxoplasma are examples.
- Glycans
- Molecules made of sugars linked in chains. Some serve as the receptors that protozoan parasites use to infect cells.
- Compost
- A method of having microorganisms break down organic matter such as food waste to make fertilizer.
NewsLab news
Prof. Kato received the 73rd Koizumi Prize from the Japanese Society of Parasitology
Prof. Kato received the 2025 Masamichi Aikawa Award from the Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine
Assistant Professor Fumi Murakoshi received the 22nd Japan Agricultural Science Progress Award
ResearchResearch themes
Animals, including humans, have lived by using resources that circulate through their relationships with microorganisms, but when this cycle is interrupted, problems such as the spread of infectious diseases and environmental pollution arise. The lab focuses on the mechanisms by which pathogens such as protozoan parasites and viruses infect hosts, and also works on putting antiprotozoal drugs into practical use and building resource-recycling systems.
*Illustrative imageMechanisms of pathogen infection and proliferation
The lab studies how protozoan parasites, viruses, and zoonotic pathogens invade host cells, multiply, remain latent, and cause severe disease. Targeting malaria, toxoplasmosis, dengue fever, and other diseases, it approaches these questions with methods from molecular biology and virology.
*Illustrative imageInfection receptors of protozoan parasites and glycan-based drugs
Using a viral-vector-based system established in the lab, it identifies the receptors that protozoan parasites use to infect cells. Building on findings about the identified glycan receptors, it is advancing research toward the practical use of glycan-based drugs as antiprotozoal drugs.
*Illustrative imageImmune mechanisms that destroy protozoan parasites and drug development
The lab studies how macrophages and neutrophils engulf and destroy protozoan parasites. It also investigates the effects on protozoan parasites of antimicrobial peptides and of metal nanoparticles coated with amino acids, and studies their use as drugs.
*Illustrative imageMolecular epidemiology and diagnostics using symbiotic viruses
With molecular epidemiological analysis and the development of molecular diagnostic systems as its aims, the lab carries out molecular phylogenetic analysis using viruses that live symbiotically on or inside protozoan parasites.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Animal Environmental Management lab consist of faculty, technical assistants, JSPS invited foreign researchers and foreign postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorKentaro Kato
- Associate ProfessorChika Tada
- Assistant ProfessorYasuhiro Fukuda
- Assistant ProfessorIqra Zafar
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Mosquitoes in cup” Bluerasberry / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Mechanisms of pathogen infection and proliferation: “Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) parasite in blood” MichaelZahniser / Public domain (cropped)
- Infection receptors of protozoan parasites and glycan-based drugs: “Coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2” Alexey Solodovnikov (Idea, Producer, CG, Editor), Valeria Arkhipova (Scientific Сonsultant) / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Immune mechanisms that destroy protozoan parasites and drug development: “Selenium nanoparticles” Muderkind / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Molecular epidemiology and diagnostics using symbiotic viruses: “Scanning electron micrograph of a human H9 T cell infected with HIV virus particles” NIAID / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
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