By Russell Stothard Brazil has a significant burden of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) but these often differ to those in sub-Saharan Africa. For example in Brazil, there are no tsetse flies and thus there can be no transmission of human sleeping sickness. However, other blood sucking insects abound and in rural areas, triatomine bugs act as the principal vectors of Chagas disease, a major blight throughout South America and is the leading cause of heart failure. Infection with this single-celled parasite is typically chronic and drug treatment is largely ineffective when the disease progresses towards its later stages, where nearly all muscle tissues can be parasitized. Several years ago when working at the London School of Hygiene of Tropical Medicine with Professor Michael Miles, we showed that the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi underwent sexual reproduction in such tissues highlighting its capacity for  rapid evolution within the body. Of the early leading…