University of Glasgow receives £2.7m award for sleeping sickness research

A University of Glasgow scientist has secured a £2.7m award to help advance the fight against a fatal parasitic disease. Annette MacLeod, of the University's Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, received the money from the Wellcome Trust to help establish a network of African scientists and conduct genomic research on African sleeping sickness. The grant is part of the Wellcome Trust Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium (H3Africa). Sleeping sickness is endemic in 36 sub-Saharan countries, exposing 60 million people to the risk of infection. Transmitted by the tsetse fly and caused by the trypanosome parasite, it causes brain inflammation and swelling and is invariably fatal if left untreated. It is estimated that at least 30,000 people are currently infected. The Wellcome Trust and NIH are working together on H3Africa, which aims to improve the health of Africans through the study of genomics and environmental determinants of common diseases.
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