African Trypanosomes and the Human Blood-Brain Barrier: Insights and Revelations and with a bonus side-track to Dengue (TRMD 690 seminar)

Date/Time: 13 October 2021, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Speaker: Dennis Grab, Ph.D.
Speaker Affiliation: Professor, Department of Pathology Uniformed Services, University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland
Venue: via Zoom; Link: https://zoom.us/j/97962975142?pwd=aFdJZmhrbjdDOGQ2UFZHZTYyeDhUZz09; Meeting ID: 979 6297 5142; Passcode: 306033

For more info: Vivek Nerurkar, nerurkar@hawaii.edu
Description: Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT; commonly called sleeping sickness) is a vector-borne parasitic disease that has a major impact on human health and welfare in sub-Saharan countries. Sleeping sickness is caused by two subspecies of African trypanosome, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and T. b. gambiense causing East African and West African sleeping sickness, respectively. In classical late stage human sleeping sickness the parasites invade the central nervous system and the infected individuals suffer from progressive neurologic involvement with concomitant psychiatric disorders and, if untreated, death. In this talk, I review our progress to delineate the mechanism of African trypanosome traversal across the human BBB at the molecular and cellular levels with the hope that this research that will lead to better therapies against the disease caused by this deadly parasite. I will also side-track to a novel dengue therapeutic idea for severe dengue.
Additional Document:Click here to download