Lena Measures

Dr. Lena Measures joined Fisheries and Oceans in 1989, as a research scientist working in marine parasitology and, since 1996, in marine mammal health in the Quebec Region including the St. Lawrence estuary, Gulf of St. Lawrence and Nunavik (Arctic Quebec). Research involves field work on viruses, bacteria, protozoa, helminths and arthropods of pinnipeds and cetaceans, particularly zoonoses, and investigating marine mammal stranding and mortality events. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases and as Review Editor for Diseases of Aquatic Organisms.

As a parasitologist since 1980, Dr. Measures has conducted field and experimental studies on parasitic nematodes infecting snowshoe hares, cottontail rabbits, marmots, ferrets, bats, fish-eating birds, freshwater and marine invertebrates and fish, pinnipeds and whales. Past studies involved taxonomy and systematics, epizootiology, pathology, pathogenesis, transmission and development of trichostrongyloids, dioctophymatoids, and currently anisakids and metastrongyloids. Collaborative research involves immunology, toxicology, molecular biotechnology and clinical veterinary studies.

Current studies involve Otostrongylus circumlitus, a lungworm causing severe pathology in some phocids; the lungworms, Stenurus arctomarinus and Halocercus monoceris, of the threatened St. Lawrence Estuary beluga; the zoonotic protozoans Giardia duodenalis, Cryptosporidium parvum and Toxoplasma gondii; influenza virus and Phocine morbillivirus, the most significant pathogen of some pinniped populations in the world. Important zoonoses currently under study and of concern to consumers of marine fish and marine mammals, and to biologists and aquaria personnel handling marine mammals include anisakiosis, trichinellosis, toxoplasmosis, giardiosis, leptospirosis, brucellosis and seal-finger.