Plasmodium falciparum and Trypanosoma cruzi were killed by two novel lytic peptides (SB-37 and Shiva-1) in vitro. Human erythrocytes infected with P. falciparum, and Vero cells infected with T. cruzi, were exposed to these peptides. The result, in both cases, was a significant decrease in the level of parasite infection. Furthermore, the peptides had a marked cytocidal effect on trypomastigote stages of T. cruzi in media, whereas host eukaryotic cells were unaffected by the treatments. In view of the worldwide prevalence of these protozoan diseases and the lack of completely suitable treatments, lytic peptides may provide new and unique chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of these infections.

To determine whether or not goal setting could be a sensitive measure of outcome clients set specific behavioral goals on the Behavioral Target Complaints Form and then evaluated their progress after seven 1-hr. sessions of psychotherapy. The sample consisted of 20 university and community clients treated with brief therapy by seven advanced graduate students and one faculty member. The 10 clients who set goals did not show greater improvement than the 10 who did not set goals on either of two other measures of outcome, the Personal Satisfaction Form (Nichols, 1975) and the Adult State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1970). However, the Behavioral Target Complaints Form was significantly correlated with the other outcome measures. The findings were interpreted as demonstrating that this goal-attainment measure is a sensitive measure of outcome but that administering it does not affect outcome of therapy.