PHA-Exchange> ANTIBIOTIC IN SOAP MAY FIGHT SLEEPING SICKNESS

[George(s) Lessard]

ANTIBIOTIC IN SOAP MAY FIGHT SLEEPING SICKNESS
A common antibiotic found in cleaning products may fight the 
parasite 
that causes sleeping sickness, researchers have found. 
FULL STORY:
http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/12/18/triclosan021218

Sleeping sickness occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, where tsetse flies 
spread the parasite.  

Researchers found they could stop the parasite from growing in a 
tube by filling it with the antibiotic triclosan.  

Normally, antibiotics attack bacteria, not parasites.

Bacteria don't cause sleeping sickness; the parasite Trypanosoma 
brucei does.  

Kimberly Paul of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore 
found the parasite appears to have pieces of bacterial genes and 
that's what the antibiotic apparently goes after.  

The parasite needs the genes to build fatty acids.

Best of all, the antibiotic in the soap doesn't attack human cells, 
Paul said.  

FROM FEB. 5, 2001: Household chemical can kill malaria parasite  
http://cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2001/02/05/malaria_010205

Last year, another team of researchers found the antibiotic also 
attacks the malaria parasite, which is spread by mosquitoes.  

The next step is to test whether the antibiotic actually works against 
sleeping sickness or malaria, and if the parasites develop 
resistance.  

The study was presented at the American Society for Cell Biology 
meeting in San Francisco this week.  

Last Updated Wed, 18 Dec 2002 18:17:23