Tuberculosis

Coordinators: Dra. Sofia Samper / Dr. Darío García.

 

 

Towards a better understanding and control of tuberculosis.

There is an urgent requirement to develop new tools and strategies to control Tuberculosis (TB). This Project meet

these needs structured on seven scientific workpackages, with the following objectives:

1. Prevention

• Entry MTBVAC into Phase 3 efficacy evaluation Prevention of Disease in newborns in South Africa, Madagascar and Senegal

• To explore “One health” perspectives, measuring the impact of the heat-killed Mycobacterium manresensis (hkMm) in veterinary in the prevention of TB in commercial pigs

2. Diagnosis

• Development and assessment of an imaging technology for automatically analyse radiological images

• New approaches for diagnosing TB in blood and urine samples

• Assessing the utility of face-mask as alternative procedure for TB sampling

• Evaluation and optimization of new molecular methods for detecting drug resistance

• Molecular and genomic strategies to optimize diagnosis

3. Host factors and biomarkers

• Development and validation of tools to predict TB patient prognosis and treatment response

• Characterization of the immune response against M. tuberculosis (Mtb) antigens in latent and active TB

• Deep immune profile of specific cell subsets and cytokines in the lung parenchyma and vasculature in Mtb infected mice model

• Characterization of specific metabolomic profiles and antigens for TB diagnosis and assessing the effect of anti-TB drugs during therapy

4. Epidemiology

• To evaluate the impact of age and gender, the hypothalamic-hypophyseal-adrenal axis, and endogenous secretion of cortisol in the development of active TB

• To characterise reinfection isolates in order to know frequency and cause

• To implement prospective WGS to improve TB transmission surveillance in different populations

5. Novel therapeutics

• Exploring new therapeutics with C3HeB/FeJ active TB mice model and TB Drosophila model

• Development and evaluation of host-directed therapies, including hkMm, ibuprofen, aspirin and RUTI

• Discovering and pharmacological development of novel anti-TB therapies, including antibacterial

compounds, peptides, anti-virulence drugs, specific mycobacteriophages, drug repurposing and synergistic interactions and/or nanoparticles as drug carriers

• Development and validation of a radiological tool to predict and monitor TB course and treatment response. Profiling current drugs and novel agents in the hollow-fiber system

6. Environmental factors

• Impact of inhaled exposome in the immunity against respiratory infections

• TB-SARS-CoV2 coinfection

• Impact of socio-economic factors on TB

7. Paving the way for a European TB Data Base and Biobank network

This proposal brings together highly qualified TB researchers from groups in CIBERES involved on TB and other national and international collaborators, who will integrate their knowledge, ongoing research projects and successful experience in developing TB control products in a coordinated programme.

 

Participant Group	Participant Organisation	Principal Investigator
CB06/06/0020	Universidad de Zaragoza	Carlos Martín Montañés
CB06/06/0031	Hospital German Trias i Pujol	Pere Joan Cardona Iglesias
CB06/06/0058	Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón de Madrid	Patricia Muñoz García