Tuberculosis Drug discovery-UK (TBD-UK)

Tuberculosis is a threat to human health world wide. The current treatment needs to be taken for a prolonged period (at least six months) and the drugs can be difficult or unpleasant to take. Many patients are unable to complete a full course of treatment and risk relapsing or developing multiple drug resistance. No new drugs have been introduced for tuberculosis treatment for almost 50 years and the pharmaceutical industry has little interest in developing new therapies. If we are going to be able to shorten therapy, which is the most important step in controlling tuberculosis worldwide, we must develop safe and more active compounds. This proposal is centred around a group of academics in the UK who are working to develop new drugs for tuberculosis and it aims to bring them together so that they can work more effectively. Funding is requested to facilitate meetings of the consortium so that further research collaborations and grant applications can be created. The award of this grant will result in a national team that will work together in a co-ordinated way to bring forward new compounds for clinical trial. The research that will emerge from this initiative will also help us understand how the tuberculosis bacterium causes disease so that we are better able to eradicate this devastating disease which kills three million people every year.

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