Marine Diseases
Dr. R.F. Lee

Marc Frischer and Richard Lee have worked together for almost a decade on diseases of crabs in the coastal areas of the southeastern United Stated. The primary focus has been on hematodinium disease in blue crabs, which caused high mortality in the blue crabs associated with unusually high salinities as a result of a severe drought in coastal Georgia . This disease is due to parasitic dinoflagellate, Hematodinium sp., which has caused major losses of commercial crabs in Scotland , Alaska Newfoundland and the southeastern US. Molecular diagnostics were developed to allow sensitive, rapid and inexpensive detection of this parasite.