Research team finds possible new approach for sleeping sickness drugs

(Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY) Using ultra-bright X-ray flashes, a team of researchers has tracked down a potential target for new drugs against sleeping sickness: The scientists have decoded the detailed spatial structure of a vital enzyme of the pathogen, the parasite Trypanosoma brucei. The result provides a possible blueprint for a drug that specifically blocks this enzyme and thus kills the parasite, as the team reports in the journal Nature Communications.