Members of the order kinetoplastida are the causative agents of African sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma brucei subspecies), leishmaniasis (Leishmania spp.) and Chagas' disease (Trypanosoma cruzi). There is no vaccine against any of these diseases and current treatments are toxic. The parasite possesses a unique subcellular organelle, the clycosome, which is a distant relative of the peroxisome found in higher eukaryotes. The glycosome houses many of the enzymes of the Embden-Meyerhof pathway of glycolysis, as well as enzymes involved in nucleotide biosynthesis, ether-lipid biosynthesis, Beta-oxidation of fatty acids, purine salvage and pyrimidine biosynthesis. Given the importance of these metabolic pathways to the parasite, the glycosome and its constitution's have been recognized as a possible target for the development of new chemotherapies. Their studies are aimed at understanding glycosomal biogenesis and protein input and the relationship of these processes and the molecules involved to peroxisome biogenesis in the human host.