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It is recognized that parasitological studies were initiated at the Zoological Museum in 1924 when a permanent Commission for the Study of Malaria Mosquitoes was established on the initiative of Academician E.N. Pavlovsky and Prof. A.A. Stakelberg. The Commission coordinated research of many beginner parasitologists. At the same time E.N. Pavlovsky and A.A. Stakelberg published a series of guides for the identification of mosquitoes and also methodical instructions on collection and examination of blood-sucking arthropods. In 1930, when the Zoological Museum was reorganized in the Zoological Institute, the Parasitology Division was established. The staff of the Division comprised E.N. Pavlovsky, the Head, and one technical-scientific worker. In 1934-1935 the Division was transformed into a Department consisting of two laboratories: Laboratory of Arachno-Entomology, its staff comprising D.I. Blagoveshchensky, A.S. Monchadsky and B.I. Pomerantsev, and the Laboratory of Parasitic Worms. In 1937-1940 the staff of the Department participated in an expedition of People's Commissariat of Health to the Far East. The purpose of the expedition was to study vectors of tick-borne and Japanese encephalitis. On the basis of data obtained during that field research and a comparison with data on a number of other diseases studied in Central Asia during many expeditions, E.N. Pavlovsky made generalizations of tremendous theoretical and practical importance, which have led him to the establishment of the theory of natural focality of transmissive diseases, i.e. diseases transmitted by insects and ticks.
During WWII the Parasitology Department together with the entire institute was evacuated to Tajikistan, where its staff conducted a field research year round under conditions of Central Asia, which provided a great body of data for research.
The limited number of research workers in the staff of the Parasitology Department could not conduct studies on all groups of practical importance. Therefore, leading specialists from other institutions were recruited for preparing volumes of The Fauna of the USSR series. Monographs and keys for the identification of sand flies (P.P. Perfilyev), horseflies (N.G. Olsufyev), blood-sucking mosquitoes and their larvae (A.A. Stakelberg, A.S. Monchadsky), blackflies (I.A. Rubtsov) and Mallophaga of domestic animals (D.I. Blagoveshchensky) were published by 1940 The Fauna of the USSR series. In the shortest possible time, the practical work in the areas of health service and veterinary medicine was provided with necessary up-to-date manuals that had been lacking in the USSR literature before. Based upon the generalization of ample new evidences, E.N. Pavlosky formulated in 1934-1937 an ecological concept of host's organism as a habitat of parasites and a theory of parasitocenoses.
Advances made by scientific workers and an increase of the staff of the Laboratory after WWII resulted in publication of a number of volumes of The Fauna of the USSR series on the ixodid ticks and soft ticks (N.A. Filippova), feather mites (V.B. Dubinin), Mallophaga (D.I. Blagoveshchensky), mosquitoes (A.V. Gutsevich, A.S. Monchadsky, A.A. Stakelberg), biting midges (A.V. Gutsevich, V.M. Glukhova), on botflies (K.Ya. Grunin), on horseflies (N.G. Olsufyev), blackflies (I.A. Rubtsov), on sand flies (P.P. Perfilyev), synanthropic flies (A.A. Stakelberg).
Keys to mites parasitizing on rodents (Ed. E.N. Pavlovsky), gamasid mites (N.G. Bregetova), and ixodid ticks (B.I. Pomerantsev, G.V. Serdyukova), lice (D.I. Blagoveshchensky) were published. In the 1960s research directions of the laboratory took a shape that have been retained in general up to present. In 2000 the staff of the laboratory includes 1 main research worker, 5 leading research workers, 3 senior research workers, 6 research workers, 1 technician, 3 collection curators, 3 engineers.
In 1977 the Parasitology Department was reorganized in Parasitology Laboratory and a separate division for a study of parasitic worms was formed. Research is conducted by the laboratory in three directions. These are in particular ecological parasitology, fauna and systematics of parasitic ticks, mites, and insects and also morphology and physiology of parasitic insects and ticks.
Blood-sucking ticks and insects are reservoirs and vectors of pathogens and many dangerous infections of which most important for Russia are tick-borne encephalitis, Crimea-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Lyme disease, plague, tularaemia and rickettsioses. The notion of natural focality of human diseases was for the first time distinctly formulated 60 years ago in 1939 by Academician E.N. Pavlovsky. Since then, different aspects of this research direction have been developed by the Laboratory of Parasitology of the Zoological Institute, RAS. The Laboratory of Parasitology was established and for a long time headed by E.N. Pavlovsky. The importance of this research direction is determined by the extreme danger of natural focal infections, as the outbreak of Crimea-Congo haemorrhagic fever in the south of Russia in 1999-2000 has shown. Prophylaxis of such diseases is to a large extent based upon the fundamental knowledge of ecology of their vectors. The Laboratory of Parasitology at the Zoological Institute maintaining the traditions of the school of thought of Academician E.N. Pavlovsky remains one of the major research centres in this field.
Studies of partner interactions in the parasitic system: small mammals - ixodid ticks - pathogens of natural focal infections in the forest zone of Russia are almost completed. Immune mechanisms of host defence against ticks have been revealed. Field and experimental studies were conducted in forest ecosystems of the North-West of Russia in natural foci of Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis. Ticks and insects parasitizing on small mammals and birds are used as model objects. Monitoring of changes of parasitic load on these hosts continues for more than 10 years. Results of this work are of prognostic value for the explanation of a possible mechanism of vector transmission to susceptible hosts and its circulation in the natural focus of infection.
Arthropods systematic studies being held in the Laboratory of Parasitology deal with vectors of pathogens of such diseases characterized by natural focality as the tick-borne encephalitis, Crimea-Congo fever, rikketsioses, tick-borne borrelioses (argasid and ixodid), plague, haemoscardioses, and also blood-suckers inflicting injury by painful bites. Therefore systematics of blood-sucking ticks and insects is one of the fundamental constituents of the problem of natural focality of diseases. Studies on systematics in the Laboratory of Parasitology were initiated by E.N. Pavlovsky and supported by him throughout his scientific and administrative activities.
The major base for the study of systematics is the scientific collection comprising approximately 240,000 items and including the following taxonomic groups: ticks Ixodoidea, chiggers Trombiculidae, parasitic mites of the superfamilies Gamasoidea, Analgoidea, Listophoroidea, Psoroptoidea, Sarcaptoidea, Cheyletoidea, Pterygosomatoidea. Insects - fleas, mosquitoes, blackflies, biting midges, lice, Mallophaga. At present systematics of the above taxa, except mosquitoes and Mallophaga is being developed. Original keys for many taxa have been developed; considerable contribution was made to the elucidation of evolution and phylogeny. Particular attention is given to the study on a species level as the basis for further research of pathogen transmission. Results have been published in monographs and numerous papers.
The Laboratory of Parasitology includes electron microscopy group equipped with scanning and transmission electron microscopes, which permit a profound morphological study of parasitic arthropods. As a result, a team of authors published "Atlas of Electron Microscopy Anatomy of Ixodid Ticks" (1979) translated into English in the USA in 1983. On the basis of electron microscopy methods and experimental works the laboratory has been successfully conducting studies of sensorial organs of blood-sucking and free-living arthropods. Further studies, which are of great scientific value, will permit explaining behaviour of arthropods and in particular a complex of responsive attacks in blood-suckers. Experimental and theoretical studies of postembryonic development, ultrastructural morphology and features of parasitism in chigger mites of the family Trombiculidae have been conducted.