Tuberculosis research

Tuberculosis (TB) has caused more deaths in the last 200 years than any other infectious disease and yet receives only 1/6th of the funding that HIV research does. In 2013, an estimated 9.0 million people developed TB and 1.5 million died from the disease, 360 000 of whom were HIV-positive (WHO 2014). Drug resistant strains of tuberculosis are becoming more common worldwide and unless we find more effective ways to fight TB, there will be a return to the pre-antibiotic era, when there were no effective drugs for TB.

Tuberculosis (TB) has caused more deaths in the last 200 years than any other infectious disease and yet receives only 1/6th of the funding that HIV research does. In 2013, an estimated 9.0 million people developed TB and 1.5 million died from the disease, 360 000 of whom were HIV-positive (WHO 2014). Drug resistant strains of tuberculosis are becoming more common worldwide and unless we find more effective ways to fight TB, there will be a return to the pre-antibiotic era, when there were no effective drugs for TB.
The STOP TB department of WHO has set an ambitious target to eliminate TB as a public health problem by 2050.

To achieve this ambitious target we need research to find:

  • Improved diagnostic tests to detect the disease early and break chains of transmission 
  • Shorter and more effective drug treatment combinations and new drugs especially for drug resistant tuberculosis 
  • Improved understanding of how to treat TB and HIV together as people with HIV are more likely to suffer from TB. 
  • A more effective vaccine than BCG which does not provide complete protection from TB disease.
  • Systematic and rigorous evaluation of the evidence to determine which new drugs and diagnostic approaches are effective 

In addition we need research into the optimal way to integrate new approaches to TB control in health systems which have limited funding and human resources and are struggling with many pressing health problems. 

At LSTM our TB research spans the whole spectrum of this complex problem, taking a practical approach to find the best solutions which can be effectively applied in resource constrained countries, including those with the highest number of TB cases.

The TB research team at LSTM is actively involved in the following partnerships and consortia:


LIV-TB is a cross-campus collaboration between the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Liverpool.
For more information on the group and a list of forthcoming events, visit the LIV-TB page.
 


 

The Team

Bertie Squire

Luis Cuevas

Russell Dacombe

Max Caws

Emily Adams

Derek Sloan

Giancarlo Biagini

Gerry Davies

Victor Ndholuvu 

Danielle Cohen

Ivor Langley

Henry Mwanbunda

Alison Ardrey

Donna Wilsoncroft

Samantha Donnellan

Nadia Kontogianni 

Gavin Laing

Thomas Edwards 

Jamie Rylance

Chris Cousins

James Millard

Iain Page

Bhagteshwar Singh

Tom Wingfield

 


     

Published studies by the Tuberculosis research team can be found here.