New Diagnosis for Sleeping Sickness

500,000 people a year die in parts of sub-Saharan Africa from sleeping sickness. Professor Sanjeev Krishna and his internationally renowned team of researchers at St George’s Medical School have found a completely new way of detecting the disease according to research published today in the Lancet. Sleeping sickness is caused by a bite from the ‘Tsetse’ fly and produces a ‘zombie’ like state in patients, ultimately resulting in death if undetected and untreated. Most drugs used to treat the infection are more than 50 years old and have serious and sometimes fatal side effects, so making the correct diagnosis is vital.

Professor Krishna and his team at St George’s Medical School, in collaboration with Angolan Doctors and the University of Würzburg in Germany have found that sleeping sickness can be detected by using a tiny quantity of the patient’s serum. The technique relies on changes in the pattern of proteins that are detected using a sophisticated device called a mass spectrometer. Changes due to sleeping sickness are unique and distinguishable from other infections, which are also commonly found in areas where there is sleeping sickness. This characteristic signature of protein patterns gives a "fingerprint" to identify the elusive killer.

Professor Krishna comments "This is the first time an infection has been diagnosed using these advanced technologies. I am very pleased that we have managed to contribute to the diagnosis of a terrible and completely neglected disease. We now want to use this information to develop tests that can be applied easily in areas where patients are actually suffering from this infection. Work on sequencing all the genes of the organism that causes sleeping sickness, supported by the Wellcome Trust, will undoubtedly help us in this objective".

These studies are a powerful example of how the newest techniques can advance understanding of ancient diseases. St. George's Medical School has recently opened a Biomics Centre, which is aimed at applying these technologies to important human diseases.