. brucei is a single-celled trypanosome that occurs in extensive parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and causes African sleeping sickness. Hundreds of thousands of individuals suffer from this disease. We plan to study the way in which the epigenome of this organism is used to allow this trypanosome to continually evade the human immune system.

The goal of the proposed work is to characterize the transgenerational genomic impact of genocide exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women survivors of the Rwandan genocide and their offspring. PTSD is a common and debilitating mental disorder that has a profound public health impact. Between April and June 1994, almost one million people died in the Rwandan genocide against ethnic Tutsi.