Brussels, Belgium -- Stefan Magez, a VIB researcher connected to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has won this years MERIAL Award for Parasitology. For a number of years now, he has been studying the parasite that causes sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis). This deadly disease strikes about 300,000 new patients each year, thousands of whom die. Not only is Stefan Magez trying to discover how the parasite makes us sick, hes also searching for methods to detect the disease more quickly, to treat it more effectively and, ultimately, to prevent it. He has now laid the foundation for a possible therapy, and the initial results in mice are very promising. MERIAL is rewarding Stefan Magez for his research to date with the prestigious MERIAL Award for Parasitology, which includes a monetary award of 2500.

Sleeping sickness

Sleeping sickness afflicts both humans and livestock and occurs primarily in Sub-Sahara Africa. Every year, thousands of people die of this disease. The death of livestock in the countries afflicted leads to an economic loss of more than one billion euro. Today, vaccination against trypanosoma, the parasite that causes sleeping sickness, is not at all effective, and the only remedy that works in all stages of infection is based on arsenic, which has severe side effects and can be deadly itself. So, Stefan Magez and his colleagues are seeking a possible alternative medicine.

An important role for TNF

Since 1992, this Flemish researcher has been focusing his attention on the role that TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor) plays in sleeping sickness. Our body produces TNF as a protection against a number of micro-organisms. About 20 years ago, scientists discovered that animals that have been infected with African trypanosoma produce far too much TNF. Through his research, Stefan Magez has shown that a trypanosoma infection prompts the immune system to produce TNF to eliminate the parasite from the body - but for
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Contact: Sooike Stoops
sooike.stoops@vib.be
329-244-6611
VIB, Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology
26-Apr-2007