Benjamin M Rosenthal Author

J. P. Dubey was born in India. He earned his veterinary degree in 1960 and master’s in veterinary parasitology in 1963, from India. He earned a Ph.D. in medical microbiology in 1966 from the University of Sheffield, England. Dr. Dubey received postdoctoral training from 1968 to 1973 with Dr. J. K. Frenkel, Department of Pathology and Oncology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City. From 1973 to 1978, he was associate professor of veterinary parasitology, Department of Pathobiology, Ohio State University, Columbus, and professor of veterinary parasitology, Department of Veterinary Science, Montana State University, Bozeman, from 1978 to 1982. He is presently a senior scientist, Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland.

Dr. Dubey has spent over 60 years researching protozoa, including Toxoplasma, Neospora, Sarcocystis, and related cyst-forming coccidian parasites of humans and animals. He has published over 1900 research papers in international journals, ¼ th of them are on Sarcocystosis. In 1985, he was chosen to be the first recipient of the “Distinguished Veterinary Parasitologist Award” by the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists (AAVP). Dr. Dubey is a recipient of the 1995 WAAVP Pfizer Award for outstanding contributions to research in veterinary parasitology. He also received the 2005 Eminent Parasitologists Award from the American Society of Parasitologists. The Thomas/Institute for Scientific Information identified him as one of the world’s most cited authors in plant and animal sciences over the last decade. In 2003, he was selected for the newly created Senior Scientific Research Service (SSRS) and is one of the few scientists and executives within the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service; selection for this position is by invitation only, on approval by the Secretary of Agriculture. In 2010, Dr. Dubey was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC and inducted in the USDA-ARS Hall of Fame. In 2018, he was the first recipient of the William C. Campbell One-Health Award by the AAVP. In the same year, he received the honorary Doctor of Science degree from McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Aditya Gupta is a molecular parasitologist with expertise in food-borne pathogens, parasite-host interactions, and aquatic parasites. Holding a Ph.D. in Life Sciences (Zoology) from Punjabi University, India, he has pursued postdoctoral research at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and Panjab University, India. His work delves into the molecular and evolutionary facets of aquatic, veterinary and wildlife parasitology, focusing on food-borne pathogens and their genetic diversity, phylogeny, and pathogenicity. Using advanced molecular tools such as whole-genome and next-generation sequencing, Dr. Gupta investigates these parasites. Notably, he played an important role in the genomic characterization of the SF1 strain of Sarcocystis falcatula, helping generate one of the very few available genomes for the genus Sarcocystis worldwide. Given that more than 300 Sarcocystis species have been described globally, yet genomic resources remain extremely limited, this accomplishment represents an important advance in molecular parasitology and comparative protozoan genomics. The resulting genome dataset, approximately 135 megabases in size, provides important insight into parasite evolution, genome organization, host adaptation, and transmission biology. His research also covers the epidemiology of parasitic infections in aquatic and domestic animals, aiding in the formulation of strategies to control and prevent zoonotic diseases. In addition to his published studies, Dr. Gupta has contributed substantially to advanced genomic investigations involving apicomplexan parasites of veterinary importance. Dr. Gupta's work has been featured across major science platforms such as ORISE, TheScientist, and ScienceX.

Benjamin M. Rosenthal is a parasitologist with primary interests in the population genetics, phylogenetics, genomics, and epidemiology of zoonotic parasites. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Harvard School of Public Health. From 1999-2025, he led a research program in veterinary and zoonotic parasitic diseases for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. His body of original research encompasses toxoplasmosis, sarcocystosis, trichinellosis, cyclosporosis, and related diseases, leveraging the genetic variation within and among parasitic microorganisms to (1) develop improved methods for their detection and diagnosis, (2) clarify their routes of transmission and define what risk they may pose to public health, and (3) establish an accurate understanding of their evolutionary relationships and origins. He is indebted to Dr. Dubey for thirty years of mentorship, collaboration, and friendship. In turn, Dr. Rosenthal has mentored myriad high school, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. His teaching at the University of Maryland, College Park focused on the ecology and evolutionary biology of infectious disease. Dr. Rosenthal developed microsatellite markers to characterize strains of Sarcocystis neurona, employed molecular diagnostics to differentiate among various suspected species of Sarcocystis, and provided the inference that Sarcocystis nesbitti, a newly recognized zoonotic species implicated in human tissue infections, might have its definitive host in a snake or related reptiles. His work on the coccidia of fish traced the origins of the Sarcocystidae and Eimeriidae to piscine hosts. In 2026, he was appointed as the Director of the Western Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, in Albany, California, overseeing a broad menu of research programs including but not limited to produce safety and microbiology, invasive species control, honeybee health, mycotoxin detection and control, food processing and engineering.