Preventing the disease by developing a vaccine seems difficult because of the ability of the trypanosome to thwart mammalian immune systems. (sciencedaily.com)
For one thing, there was a good chance the mammalian immune system would reject the foreign protein. (discovermagazine.com)
Working with small, fishlike and jawless creatures called lancelets, Xu and colleagues found a DNA transposon called ProtoRAG, an evolutionary relative of the genes for the mammalian immune system's RAG1 and RAG2. (sciencenews.org)