Events

23 Oct 2018

Genomics to tame tuberculosis

At this special seminar, Dr Sarah Dunstan will present on Genomics to tame tuberculosis. 

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease of global importance that lacks effective tools for it’s control and elimination. Diagnosis can be slow, treatment is long, disruption of transmission is labour intensive, and the current vaccine has poor effectiveness. This is further impounded by the emergence of drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). In this seminar the results and impact of our host and pathogen genomic studies in large, clinically complex TB patient cohorts from Vietnam will be presented and discussed. Our results demonstrate how pathogen genomics can define the population diversity and spread of Mtb, and investigate drug resistance emergence. Furthermore, we have identified TB susceptibility genes, providing insight into the mechanisms of protective immunity. Scrutinising both host and pathogen genomic variation can advance our discovery and implementation of more rapid diagnostics and new host directed therapies, especially relevant for drug resistant TB, and also for vaccine development.