New diagnostic test for Chagas disease

Chagas disease is a tropical parasitic disease commonly transmitted to humans and other mammals by an insect vector, but it can also be spread through blood transfusions and food contaminated with parasites. It's a horrible scourge that, though eminently treatable, is believed to infect more than 8 million people in Mexico, Central America and South America, most of whom do not know they are infected.

But now, researchers in UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Diseases have devised a new diagnostic test to determine the effectiveness of treatments for Chagas:

There is currently no easy-to-use and reliable test available to assess if Chagas patients receiving treatment are rid of the parasite that causes the disease, Trypanosoma cruzi. This project will access the performance of commonly prescribed anti-parasitic drugs and hopefully lead to a new, efficient blood test to detect the parasite.

"The major problem in terms of drug treatment for Chagas disease is that it is virtually impossible to determine if the treatment is effective," said Rick Tarleton, Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts of Sciences department of cellular biology, and member of UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. "The detection of T. cruzi is very difficult because of low parasite numbers and the fact that these parasites are primarily in deep tissues such as the heart."

In the first-ever large-scale study, Tarleton will team up with researchers at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute to study treatment of non-human primates that have become infected with the parasite in their outdoor living environment. The animals will be treated with three drug regimens versus placebo, and a series of blood tests will search for evidence of infection in the blood.

As the release points out, this new work will also help pharmaceutical companies know which drugs and treament regimens to invest in, by helping them determine which drugs work best. A true interdisciplinary program, the Center for Tropical and and Emerging diseases brings together a critical mass of faculty from Franklin College units including cellular biology, genetics, and biochemistry & molecular biology. Congratulations to Tarleton and his colleagues for this work that will alleviate needless suffering for millions of people.

Image: Distinguished Research Professor Rick Tarleton, the founding director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.