Around me flows contentment, self-satisfaction--a contrast to my apprehension as I take a place in the second row of my all-graduating-senior Parasitology class. They don't know I'm not one of them, and the irony leaves me breathless and on edge. Carefully, I articulate questions about diagnostic pathologies and traumatic anemias, trying not to give myself away. As long as I can keep up, no one has to know.
Schistosoma mansoni is a blood parasite that makes its home in the tight bends of intestinal mesenteric venules. You'd think that being fully immersed in the bloodstream would make it a prime target for antibody-mediated immune response; however, the parasite cloaks itself in antigens similar to those normally found in blood, so potentially lethal white cells cruise right on by, noticing nothing.
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