About Us
Research Problem |
Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious, airborne infectious disease that kills about 1.3 million people annually. More than half of these patients reside in China and India, two of the world’s most populous countries. Despite current research and treatments, TB is the second leading cause of death in several countries, mainly in East Asia and Africa, and one in three people are carriers for the disease. It is caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and usually affects the lungs, which is referred to as pulmonary TB. As a dominant issue in developing countries and immunocompromised communities, TB is rapidly becoming more difficult to treat due to the increased resistance against a multitude of drugs. The increasing number of cases outpaces current vaccines and treatments, but there are plenty of unexplored niches in the bacterium’s mechanism that can be targets for new and novel drugs.
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Research Question
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What virulence pathways can be disrupted with a drug panel to produce an attenuated Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria?
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Mission Statement |
Our goal is to find a known drug that decreases virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by looking for protein interactions in ESX-1 and ESX-5 secretion systems or the Nuo operon.
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