The International Society of Protistologists and The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology conferred the 2016 William Trager Award on: M. Qi, R. Wang, H. Wang, F. Jian, J. Li, J. Zhao, H. Dong, H. Zhu, C. Ning, and L. Zhang, for publishing the highest impact article entitled: “Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotypes in grazing horses in China and their zoonotic transmission potential” (vol. 63, Issue 5, pp. 591-97).
Microsporidia constitute a diverse group of obligate intracellular pathogens that infect a wide range of invertebrate and vertebrate taxa. Of the 1200 species of microsporidia known, E. bieneusi is the species most commonly detected in humans. The study by Qi et al. reports the prevalence of E. bieneusi in grazing horses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Several of the found genotypes were previously detected in humans. The high diversity in the E. bieneusi genotypes and their zoonotic potential suggest that grazing horses are a potential source of zoonotic infection in humans.
To honour his distinguished career in protozoology and his leadership role in establishing The Journal of Protozoology, the Society of Protozoologists established in 1998 the William Trager Award for Outstanding Paper of the Year. This award is given to the most cited original article published in the journal in the previous two years and consists of a Diploma and a $100.00 check to the first author of the article.