African Sleeping Sickness News and Research

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African trypanosomiasis is also known as sleeping sickness. There are two types of African trypanosomiasis, East and West, named for the region of Africa in which they were historically found. People can get the disease if they are bitten by an infected tsetse fly, which is only found in Africa. Treatment is available for African trypanosomiasis, but it is fatal if left untreated.

TU Darmstadt’s biosensor can diagnose African sleeping sickness before it breaks out

African sleeping sickness is an infectious disease that is widespread south of the Sahara Desert. Although the around sixty million people residing in tropical Africa run the risk of becoming infected with the disease every day, only around four million of them are monitored for the disease by disease-control authorities.

13 Dec 2012

'Greater commitment' needed to fight NTDs

In a guest post on USAID's "IMPACT Blog," Rachel Cohen, regional executive director of DNDi North America, writes, "The United States government and its country partners should be commended for the tremendous achievements in the fight against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) NTD Program" and the National Institutes of Health.

20 Sep 2012

Microbiologists reveal how T. brucei’s key proteins organize to replicate its mtDNA

A group of diseases that kill millions of people each year can't be touched by antibiotics, and some treatment is so harsh the patient can't survive it. They're caused by parasites, and for decades researchers have searched for a "magic bullet" to kill them without harming the patient. Now, a team of microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has made an advance that could one day lead to a new weapon for fighting parasitic diseases such as African sleeping sickness, chagas disease and leishmaniasis.

11 Jul 2012

Clemson researcher to continue African sleeping sickness study

Clemson University researcher James Morris received a $360,079 competitive renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his study of Trypanosoma brucei, the single-celled parasite that causes African sleeping sickness.

3 Apr 2012

Researchers identify fexinidazole as potential new therapy for visceral leishmaniasis

Researchers at the University of Dundee have identified fexinidazole as a possible, much-needed, new treatment for the parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis.

3 Feb 2012

DWH signs collaboration agreement with CPDD

Developing World Health (DWH), a leading medical charity based in Stirlingshire, Scotland and committed to developing effective treatments for neglected tropical diseases, has signed a collaboration agreement with the internationally respected Consortium for Parasitic Drug Development (CPDD), based at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

27 Jan 2012

ASBMB names Yale scientist as winner of inaugural Alice and C.C. Wang award

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has named Elisabetta Ullu, professor of internal medicine and cell biology at the Yale University School of Medicine, the winner of the society's inaugural Alice and C.C. Wang award.

29 Dec 2011

DFMO appears to protect against nonmelanoma skin cancers

An antiparasitic agent used to treat African sleeping sickness might someday be used to prevent nonmelanoma skin cancers. Researchers found that DFMO, or α-difluoromethylornithine, still appeared to protect against nonmelanoma skin cancers years after people stopped taking the drug, according to a poster presented at the 10th AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held Oct. 22-25, 2011.

24 Oct 2011

How will NTDs suffer as global health agenda adds NCD focus?

In this post in the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases' "End the Neglect" blog, Charles Ebikeme, a writer for the All Results Journals who has worked as a research scientist on African sleeping sickness, examines a "blurring" link between non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), writing, "The topsy-turvy nature of NTDs extends far beyond infectious diseases and is becoming increasingly more complicated."

7 Oct 2011

UCI professor wins Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists & Engineers

Rommie Amaro, UC Irvine assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and computer science, has been selected by President Obama for the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists & Engineers.

28 Sep 2011

Information and communications technology revolution in the developing world

Charles Ebikeme, a writer who "has worked for many years as a research scientist on African sleeping sickness" examines a health revolution in information and communications technology (ICT) taking place across the developing world in this "End the Neglect" blog post, writing, "The initial concept of telemedicine now spans a wide spectrum of applications, labels, contexts, and platforms."

3 Sep 2011

Drug companies collaborate with DNDi support to develop drug for African sleeping sickness

Researchers from Scynexis Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Anacor Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, Calif., sponsored by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, on Tuesday reported in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that a new experimental drug kills the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness in mice and will enter human clinical trials this year, ScienceNOW reports.

30 Jun 2011

MMV honors UT Southwestern with Project of the Year for new anti-malarial drug discovery

The discovery of a potential new anti-malarial drug by a UT Southwestern Medical Center-led research team has been awarded Project of the Year by Medicines for Malaria Venture.

7 Jun 2011

Scientists discover new compounds that may help fight against parasitic diseases

Trypanosomatid parasites cause diseases like African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease and leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis affects about 12 million people worldwide, mostly in developing countries. Current drug treatments are inadequate due to drug toxicity and resistance.

5 Apr 2011

Anacor Pharma, MMV enter agreement to develop AN3661 for malaria treatment

Anacor Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has entered into a development agreement with Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop Anacor's compound AN3661 for the treatment of malaria.

18 Mar 2011

Anacor and iOWH establish research agreement to identify new drugs for shigellosis

Anacor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ANAC) and the Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) today announced the establishment of a joint research agreement to discover antibacterial compounds for treating shigellosis.

8 Mar 2011

African sleeping sickness parasite's previously unrecognized extreme social behavior discovered

Long considered a freewheeling loner, the Trypanosoma brucei parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness has revealed a totally unexpected social side, opening a potential chink in the behavioral armor of this and other supposedly solitary human parasites, according to research presented at the American Society for Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

15 Dec 2010

Anacor, UCSF and NYBC collaborate to discover drug therapies for river blindness

Anacor Pharmaceuticals, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Sandler Center and the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute (LFKRI) of the New York Blood Center (NYBC) today announced the establishment of a research and development collaboration to discover new drug therapies for the treatment of river blindness (onchocerciasis), a parasitic disease that is the second leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide, and is most prevalent in Africa.

1 Dec 2010

Research on trypanosomes can open way for African sleeping sickness drug development

Trypanosomes are parasites responsible for many human and animal diseases, primarily in tropical climates. One disease these parasites cause, African sleeping sickness, results from the bite of infected tsetse flies, putting over 60 million Africans at risk in 36 sub-Saharan countries. The recent 1998-2001 sleeping sickness epidemics in South Sudan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda killed tens of thousands of people and resulted in over a half million infected individuals.

31 Aug 2010

Researchers discover genetic explanation for non-diabetic kidney disease in African-Americans

Kidney disease is a growing public health problem, with approximately half a million individuals in the United States requiring dialysis treatments to replace the function of their failed kidneys. The problem is particularly acute among African-Americans, whose rates of kidney disease are four times higher than those of European Americans.

20 Jul 2010