Research Spotlight: African Bovine Sleeping Sickness!

The University of Manchester’s Bioinformatics research team has developed a groundbreaking work-flow system that is helping scientists worldwide develop a cure for African Bovine Sleeping Sickness.

The team, who are based in the School of Computer Science, have created an online environment called Taverna that lets scientists share their research findings.

The work-flow system allows scientists in different locations to communicate their research with one another, meaning that they can work collaboratively, and that previous research findings can gain new value.

As a result, significant breakthroughs are being made to combat African trypanosomiasis, also known as ‘sleeping sickness’, which causes livestock to develop flu-like symptoms.

The disease is spread in the saliva of flies that carry parasites, which then breed in the blood of contaminated cattle. This causes them to develop symptoms including fever, lethargy and joint pain, often resulting in death during sleep.

The sociological implications for communities who depend on agriculture to survive can be devastating, but some cattle have a resistance to the disease.

Andrew Brass, Professor of Bioinformatics from the School of Computer Science, said: “Some African cattle have a unique resistance. We are interested in categorising that resistance.

“The work-flow system significantly aids us in recording research with the cattle on the ground. Previously, during a drought lions could actually eat our research.

“The work-flow system is also helping us in hypothesis generation. We have a huge information management system, that’s where Taverna is important.

“In the past it was easy to be biased. You tended to look where you expected to find results.  With the work-flow system in place we can be agnostic in hypothesis generation.

“We can now look more widely, and in doing that we have spotted things we might otherwise have missed.”