Integrating plasma proteomics for earlier diagnosis of pulmonary TB

Speaker: Hannah is a clinical academic with a research interest in mycobacterial lung disease and diagnostics. Her research investigates protein biomarkers of pulmonary TB and other respiratory infections. She trained in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and graduate entry medicine at the University of Oxford, moving to Southampton to progress her research career through an MRC clinical research training fellowship and NIHR academic clinical lectureship. She has recently won the British Thoracic Society Early Career Investigator award for her research.

Topic: Novel non-sputum-based diagnostics to identify infectious patients transmitting Mycobacterium tuberculosis are urgently needed to control the global TB pandemic. Working with Dr Naomi Walker at LSTM and Professor Paul Elkington at the University of Southampton, we have identified a novel diagnostic biomarker panel that can differentiate individuals with pulmonary TB from healthy controls and individuals with similar presenting symptoms but a different underlying diagnosis. We have demonstrated that these proteins are significantly differentially expressed in two clinical cohorts and exceed the WHO target product profile specificity criteria for a triage test for TB. This talk will outline this diagnostic pipeline, summarise biological insights from the analysis and discuss the potential for further development as near-patient TB screening assays.