University of Surrey leads an international research programme on tuberculosis
Monday 22 March 2010
University of Surrey researchers have recently been awarded £1.2 million for research on tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is caused by the pathogenic bacterium mycobacterium tuberculosis, which infects 9 million new people every year. Vaccination against mycobacterium tuberculosis is ineffective in adults and drug treatment takes six months, which is impractical in developing world settings where tuberculosis is most common.
Consequent non-compliance with treatment regimes has led to the emergence of drug resistance world-wide with practically incurable 'extreme drug-resistant' strains appearing in many countries including the U.K.
Part of the funding is made up of two grants awarded from the Wellcome Trust and headed by Dr Graham Stewart and Professor Johnjoe McFadden from Surrey, to investigate the interaction of mycobacterium tuberculosis with its host cell, focusing specifically on intracellular bacterial metabolism and bacterial control of host cell death.
The three successful bids are the result of the longstanding interdisciplinary collaboration within the Division of Microbial Sciences. The grants provide resources to strengthen the University of Surrey’s world-leading programme in the application of Systems Biology approaches to Infection and Immunity. This programme will provide significant contribution to the development of new therapeutic and vaccination strategies to combat tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
In addition, the Division of Microbial Sciences is the leading partner of an international consortium coordinated by Dr Andrzej Kierzek, which will apply interdisciplinary approaches to study the interaction between mycobacterium tuberculosis and its host cell. The consortium involves partners from CNRS (France), Institute Pasteur (France), Max Planck Institute (Germany) and University of Milan-Biococca (Italy).
Collaboration between these world-class experts will enable integration of high-throughput functional genomic approaches with computer simulations to characterise the molecular interaction networks involved in the parasitism of human macrophages and dendritic cells by mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Media Enquiries
Peter La, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: +44 (0)1483 689191, or Email mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk