LSTM, TB Alliance investigate of new TB drug therapies

As part of an effort to counter multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and the TB Alliance are collaborating — with monetary support from the Medical Research Council (MRC) — to investigate new combination TB therapies.

A £1 million ($1.3 million) award to the partners brings together a multidisciplinary team to target the respiratory chain of TB-causing bacteria. Drug-sensitive TB is currently treated with four drugs lasting up to six months, which can often contribute to the creation of MDR-TB. Treatment for drug-resistant TB can be much more taxing, potentially requiring six months of painful daily injections that can have debilitating side effects two years or longer. The current success rate for MDR-TB treatments is only 54 percent.

“TB is the leading cause of death related to antimicrobial resistance and MDR-TB is on the rise globally,” Giancarlo Biagini, a professor from LSTM’s Research Centre for Drugs and Diagnostics and team lead, said. “We know that new combination therapies are urgently required, and this award will allow us to validate what will be an exciting new approach in targeting multiple components of the respiratory chain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative pathogen of TB.”

In vitro and in vivo disease models of TB will be used to identify combinations of targets that they think could provide the greatest clinical benefit. They will also research the possibility of combining inhibitors that could prevent TB bacteria from replicating. The latter holds the possibility of allowing drug therapies to last longer without resistance build-up.