Research
The genome of the parasite has been sequenced and several proteins have been identified as potential targets for drug treatment. Analysis of the genome also revealed the reason why generating a vaccine for this disease has been so difficult. T. brucei has over 800 genes that make proteins the parasite "mixes and matches" to evade immune system detection.
Recent findings indicate the parasite is unable to survive in the bloodstream without its flagellum. This insight gives researchers a new angle with which to attack the parasite.
A new treatment based on a truncated version of the apolipoprotein L-1 of high density lipoprotein and a single-domain antibody has recently been found to work in mice, but has not been tested in humans.
The cover story of the August 25, 2006 issue of the journal Cell describes an advance in understanding how Trypanosomes escape the immune system. Dr. Lee Soo Hee and colleagues, working at Johns Hopkins investigated the pathway by which trypanosomes make myristate, a 14-carbon length fatty acid. Myristate is a component of the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG), the molecule that makes up the trypanosome's outer layer. This outer surface coat of VSG is vital to the trypanosome's ability to avoid destruction by the host's immune system. Dr. Lee and colleagues discovered trypanosomes use a novel fatty acid synthesis pathway involving fatty acid elongases to make myristate and other fatty acids.
An international research team working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, and Angola involving Immtech International and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have completed a Phase IIb clinical trial and began a Phase III trial in 2005 testing the efficacy of the first oral treatment for sleeping sickness, pafuramidine (DB289). Trypanosomiasis vaccines are undergoing research.
Two independent variants of the APOL1 gene found in African haplotypes carrying signatures of natural selection have been shown to confer protection against the acute version of sleeping sickness caused by T. b. rhodesiense, while at the same time increasing risk of kidney disease when inherited from both parents.
Synthetic and computer-based approaches are used for the development of newer antitrypanosomal analogues with improved efficacy and oral bioavailability.
The Dempster-Shafer theory for detecting African trypanosomiasis displays the result of detection process.
Read more about this topic: African Trypanosomiasis
Famous quotes containing the word research:
“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?” [Was will das Weib?]”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“The research on gender and morality shows that women and men looked at the world through very different moral frameworks. Men tend to think in terms of “justice” or absolute “right and wrong,” while women define morality through the filter of how relationships will be affected. Given these basic differences, why would men and women suddenly agree about disciplining children?”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)