Trypanosomes News and Research

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Clinical study tests 100-year-old drug in children with autism spectrum disorder

In a small, randomized Phase I/II clinical trial (SAT1), researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine say a 100-year-old drug called suramin, originally developed to treat African sleeping sickness, was safely administered to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who subsequently displayed measurable, but transient, improvement in core symptoms of autism.

26 May 2017

Biochemists solve puzzle of putrid camel pee to unearth potential target for treating sleeping sickness

Biochemists from Trinity College Dublin have solved an old mystery as to the cause of especially smelly camel urine, with implications for the millions of people affected by African parasites called trypanosomes.

17 Nov 2016

Scientists discover trypanosomes hiding in the skin of individuals with no symptoms

Scientists from the Trypanosome Cell Biology Unit (Institut Pasteur/Inserm), working in collaboration with scientists from the University of Glasgow, have demonstrated the presence of a large quantity of trypanosomes – the parasites responsible for sleeping sickness – in the skin of individuals with no symptoms.

27 Sep 2016

UGA study helps solve mystery of how African trypanosomes communicate

While scientists have known for years that African trypanosomes cause sleeping sickness, they've been left scratching their heads as to how these tiny single-celled organisms communicate. A University of Georgia study, published Jan. 14 in the journal Cell, helps solve this mystery.

18 Jan 2016

Study sheds further light on the way APOL1 protein kills trypanosmoe

The African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei is a blood parasite capable of infecting many mammals. Humans are provided with natural immunity against infection through the activity of the protein apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1): captured via endocytosis, APOL1 forms pores in the lysosomal membrane, leading to the death of the trypanosome.

27 Aug 2015

Prenatal care for pregnant women increases from 61 to 91.3%, highlights Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea's infant mortality rate has decreased from 111 in 1994 to 65 per one thousand in 2011, said the country's Health Secretary of State, Maria del Carmen Andeme Ela. She also reported that the percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care from skilled health personnel has increase from 61% in 2000 to 91.3% this year.

22 Aug 2014

Simple chip-based method for better diagnosis of parasitic infections

Parasitic infections like malaria and sleeping sickness affect hundreds of millions of people, primarily in the poorest regions of the world. Diagnosis of these diseases is often difficult because the concentration of parasites in the blood can be very low.

28 Mar 2014

Researchers observe mating for the first time in microbes responsible for African sleeping sickness

Caught in the act! Researchers from the University of Bristol have observed mating for the first time in the microbes responsible for African sleeping sickness. This tropical disease is caused by trypanosomes, single-celled parasites that are found in the blood of those afflicted.

5 Jan 2014

New discovery could help combat spread of sleeping sickness

A new discovery by scientists could help combat the spread of sleeping sickness.

15 Dec 2013

Genetically modified bacterial treatment approach reduces or eliminates sleeping sickness

A tag team of two bacteria, one of them genetically modified, has a good chance to reduce or even eliminate the deadly disease African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, researchers at Oregon State University conclude in a recent mathematical modeling study.

4 Oct 2013

D-Pharm announces promising results with drug candidates in models of HAT and malaria

D-Pharm Ltd., announced today on-line publication of promising results with its drug candidates, DP-460 and DP-b99, in models of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) and malaria.

20 Aug 2013

Calcium receptor – potential drug target for sleeping sickness

While its common name may make it sound almost whimsical, sleeping sickness, or African trypanosomiasis, is in reality a potentially fatal parasitic infection that has ravaged populations in sub-Saharan Africa for decades, and it continues to infect thousands of people every year.

19 Jan 2013

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

Scientists open new front against cause of sleeping sickness

Scientists of the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITG) opened a new front against the cause of sleeping sickness. This parasite is transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The researchers learned a bacterium living in those flies how to produce antibodies against the parasite. Application in the field is still a long way of, but the technique shows quite some promise.

31 Aug 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

Mimotopes can help develop new diagnostic tests for sleeping sickness

Each year many thousands of Africans contract sleeping sickness. The cause is a unicellular parasite, a trypanosome, which is transmitted by the bite of tsetse flies. First the parasite multiplies in blood and lymph, while evading the human immune system. It then lodges in organs like heart and kidneys and finally in the brain. Patients become disoriented, their sleeping pattern disintegrates and they get motor and mental problems.

23 May 2012

Scientists discover linchpin protein that drives mitochondria's calcium machinery

Mitochondria, those battery-pack organelles that fuel the energy of almost every living cell, have an insatiable appetite for calcium. Whether in a dish or a living organism, the mitochondria of most organisms eagerly absorb this chemical compound.

20 Jun 2011

Tsetse fly mapping distribution model may help solve sleeping sickness mystery

Since before the 1300s, people living in many parts of Africa have been dying from a disease known as sleeping sickness. Despite public health campaigns that explain ways to stop infection—primarily by killing the disease-spreading tsetse fly—successful eradication has remained out of reach. That's partly because epidemiologists can't predict where cases will emerge next.

28 Apr 2011

New approaches for controlling sleeping sickness caused by trypanosomes

The research could eventually lead to new approaches for controlling sleeping sickness in humans and wasting diseases in livestock which are caused by trypanosomes carried by the bloodsucking tsetse fly.

18 Feb 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