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The lab's most recent triumph is against trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, a disease that makes large areas of Africa virtually uninhabitable. Studying trypanosomes, the microscopic parasites that cause this disease, a young biomedical student, Steven Meshnick, found that they contained an unusually high concentration of hydrogen peroxide—a compound that reacts vigorously with metals. Turning that bit of elementary chemistry against the bugs, the Rockefeller scientists injected compounds into mice infected with sleeping sickness that, in effect, duped the parasites into picking up metals already in the rodents' bodies. Result: the parasites literally exploded—without harming the mice. The team is now working on similar compounds to do the job in both people and cattle.