Organization of the Parasite Genome Programme network

Five years ago the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) from the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Parasi te Genome Project. The aims were to obtain information on genome organizati on and gene discovery in five parasites, namely, Schistosoma, Filaria, Leis hmania and Trypanosomas brucei and cruzi, Organization of research networks for each parasite under study, promotion of international collaboration an d training of researchers in developing countries, were also main objective s of the programme. After five years, a large amount of information has bee n obtained, which is now available to researchers in the field.