
This week, we are highlighting two articles published online in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in March. The first article by Coxon, et al., looks at the benefits and limitations of the two main approaches to compound discovery for TB, target-based and phenotypic-based. The second article by Phillips, et al., would like TB clinical trialists to consider new strategies or designs for evaluating TB drug regimens which could alleviate a bottleneck as new drugs and consequently new potential drug combinations move into clinical testing. Additional links to TB R&D publications and news are included.
The 243rd American Chemistry Society National Meeting and Exposition is being held in San Diego, California, from March 26 to March 29. There are several presentations on tuberculosis. Here are the abstracts of a few of the talks. The first item received news coverage and discusses two approved antibiotics that may prove effective in treating TB. Additional links to TB R&D News are included.
Saturday, March 24, is officially World TB Day but there has been a stream of activities, publications, news and messages to let the world not forget about this major infectious disease killer that claims millions of lives each year. We present links and summaries of events, publications, messages, and news coverage leading up to World TB Day.
In this week’s interview, we discuss with Dr. Tawanda Gumbo his recently published paper that puts forth evidence that nonadherence may not be the prime reason for the emergence of drug resistance in TB, his research interests and background, the recent debate on the role of efflux pumps in drug tolerance and his research to optimize TB drugs. Additional links to TB R&D news are included.
This week’s article highlights research out of Colorado State University that identifies a potential anti-TB compound against a unique target– the inner membrane transporter MmpL3 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis–that inhibits an essential cell function of the mycobacteria. Additional links to TB R&D News are included.
On November 17 and 18, a TB Clinical Trials Consultants Meeting was held at St. George’s, University of London. The meeting was organized by CDC, CPTR, INTERTB, NIH, and TB Alliance. The meeting was convened to catalog expert opinion on the conduct of Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials in tuberculosis.