Submitted by Administrator on Tue, 26/02/2019 - 16:39
World Tuberculosis Day 2019 takes place on Sunday 24 March, with the theme “It’s time”. CID shares a selection of work from the University of Cambridge around this disease.
World Tuberculosis Day 2019 takes place on Sunday 24 March, with the theme “It’s time”. TB kills nearly 4,500 people every day, and 10 million became ill with TB in 2017.
Bovine TB in animals was reported by nearly half of the 179 countries who reported their bovine TB status to OIE, 2015-16. As well as harming animal health, it can be hugely damaging for farmers whose livestock and livelihoods are affected. Furthermore bovine TB is zoonotic, and the WHO has estimated 12,500 people died due to M. Bovis TB in 2017*.
Below is a selection of work from the University of Cambridge around this disease.
Ramakrishnan Group (Department of Medicine)
Led by Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan, the Ramakrishnan Group study the pathogenesis of tuberculosis using zebrafish. The fish are susceptible to tuberculosis caused by a bacteria very similar to the bacteria that causes tuberculosis in humans. Watch Professor Ramakrishnan discuss the research in a video from the Wellcome Trust.
The Abell Group (Department of Chemistry) and The Blundell Lab (Department of Biochemistry)
The Abell Group and Blundell Lab work on drug discover programmes include projects focused on TB, using new fragment-based approaches for the discovery of enzyme inhibitors. Find out more about their work.
The Floto Lab (Department of Medicine)
The Floto Lab look at defining the critical molecular pathways that restrict intracellular bacterial growth. Professor Andres Floto is also director of the UK Cystic Fibrosis Innovation Hub, which aims to prevent lung damage in Cystis Fibrosis. Find out more about the Floto Lab’s work on tuberculosis.
Cambridge-Chennai Centre Partnership on Antimicrobial Resistant Tuberculosis (Department of Medicine)
In 2015 the University of Cambridge was awarded £2 million from the UK Medical Research Council and the Government of India’s Department for Biotechnology to develop a partnership with the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai. The project include University of Cambridge Professors Sharon Peacock, Lalita Ramakrishnan, Ken Smith, Tom Blundell and Andres Floto. Find out more about the partnership.
Ethicobots: Ethiopia Control of Bovine Tuberculosis Strategies (Department of Veterinary Medicine)
Ethicobots is a 5 year research project awarded to a consortium of researchers from Ethiopia and the UK, led by the University of Cambridge. It aims to tackle the high burden of bovine TB in the Ethiopian dairy farm sector and to investigate the consequences of the on-going centrifugal trade of potentially infected dairy cattle to low prevalence regions and farming systems on transmission. Find out the latest news from the Ethicobots project.
TB News from University of Cambridge
- Revisiting the timetable of tuberculosis: Unravelling the myth that “latent TB” is a big problem
- Clogged-up’ immune cells help explain smoking risk for TB
- A whole host of options
- Gene discovery provides clues to how TB may evade the immune system
Bovine TB News from University of Cambridge
- ETHICOBOTS offers support to the Ethiopian Government with ambitious plans to clean Government herds of Bovine TB
- Cost and scale of field trials for bovine TB vaccine may make them unfeasible
- Minimising ‘false positives’ key to vaccinating against bovine TB
*WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2019, Table 3.4 p38.