University of Pittsburgh Researchers Receive $11.4M Gates Foundation Grant for TB Research
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research announced Wednesday that they have received an $11.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for tuberculosis research, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. The researchers are aiming to simplify and shorten TB treatment regimens, the Tribune-Review reports. The grant will be used to purchase imaging technology to study TB in monkeys and examine how the monkeys respond to drugs.
The researchers said they plan to use the imaging techniques of positron emission tomography and computed tomography (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/19). By using combined PET/CT, the researchers will be able to monitor the progression of the disease, as well as examine changes in tissue and responses to specific drugs, according to a University of Pittsburgh release. The team will use a combination of imaging technologies -- including radionuclides, fluorescence and mass spectrometry -- to develop imaging probes and methods to isolate bacteria associated with TB and to investigate reasons for slow drug metabolism, the release said.
JoAnne Flynn, principal investigator of the grant and a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, said, "Current drugs are available, but we don't fully understand how or why they work. TB treatment must be continued for at least six months to be effective, placing an undue burden on those who are infected -- often from the poorest and most disadvantaged countries." She added that an improved understanding of the disease and how "current drugs are localized at the site of infection" is needed in order to create "shorter and simplified approaches to treatment."
According to Flynn, using modern tools could help "to lay the groundwork for real-time measurements of TB drug efficacy in clinical trials" and to promote the development of "new targeted therapies that will considerably shorten the length of treatment" (University of Pittsburgh release, 3/19).
