Funding awarded for TB research
The St Andrews tuberculosis research group together with global health partners have won a €4.9 million grant from the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Led by Prof Kogieleum Naidoo, of CAPRISA in Kwa-Zulu Natal, the TRiAD consortium seeks to determine how new diagnostic tests can be used to improve tuberculosis treatment, especially for drug resistant disease(DR- B), in low and middle income countries. The consortium consists of 11 partners from Africa, Europe and North America. The team at St Andrews will be responsible for medical support to patients and research sites during trial set-up and will provide clinical mentorship in Africa as part of building capacity. We will also further investigate the utility of the innovative tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay (TB-MBLA) in monitoring treatment response of patients with drug resistant tuberculosis. TB-MBLA was pioneered at St Andrews as the first culture-free biomarker for rapid measurement of treatment response in tuberculosis patients.