Nikolai Тоkarevich - Head of laboratory

Professor, Doctor of Medicine

Phone: (812) 232-21-36, office 243, email: tokarevich@pasteurorg.ru 

 

The Laboratory of Zooantroponozes was officially founded in 1933 as a structural unit of the Department of Parasitic Typhoid (founder of the Department is N. Romanenko).

For 25 years the Laboratory has been directed by K. Тоkarevich (he was succeeded by F. Krasnik, E. Popova, B. Vershinskiy, and A. Daiter). Since 1993 the Laboratory is headed by N. Тоkarevitch.

Over the course of several years, rickettsioses have been one of the main research topics carried out by the Laboratory: primarily epidemic typhus including its relapse form (Brill's disease), then murine rickettsiosis, coxiellosis and tick-borne rickettsiosis of Asia. At present, the topics of human monocytic ehrlichiosis and human granulocyte anaplasmosis are added. Since the 1940s, the study of leptospiroses has been undertaken alongside that of rickettsioses.

One of the main focuses of research in the Laboratory over several years is the regional epidemiology of zooanthroponoses in the Northwestern Federal District of Russia.

Another research path of the Laboratory is connected to the improvement and the development of methods for the detection of agents of zooanthroponosis infections and the study of their genetic variety.

Another line of research in the Laboratory is linked to the study of the relationships between agents of zooanthroponosis infections and their main and intermediate hosts.Several years of studies of the relationships of Coxiella burnetii and ticks have been summarized in the monograph "Blood-borne arthropods and rickettsiae" (U. Balashov, A. Dayter, 1973).

The fourth research trend is the development of products for the specific prevention and treatment of zooanthroponosis infections.

Following the studies carried out by O. Freilikhman, Y. Panferova, N. Stoyanova and N. Тоkarevich new data are now available on the biological properties and the genetic variety of the population of pathogenic leptospires, Coxiella, EER virus, and Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato circulating in the territory of Russia.

Laboratory staff participates in two international projects: "The role of migrating birds and the carried over tics on dissemination of some medically important zoonoses along the east-european flyway" (jointly with the Pasteur Institute in Paris (Carniel) and the Stephan Angeloff Institute of Microbiology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (H.Najdenski), and "Tick-borne diseases in the Barents Sea region of Northwest Norway" (in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health). The role of migrating birds as carriers and natural foci of C. burnetii and B. burgdorferi sl has been demonstrated, new data on the activities of the natural foci of "tick-borne diseases" in the Federal District of the North-West of the Russian Federation were obtained.