Dr Happy Tshivhula, Stellenbosch University, South Africa - VALIDATE Fellow
Probing extreme phenotypes to determine correlates of risk for recurrent TB: a step towards optimised vaccine development
Project Aims
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and remains a major health problem worldwide. Although it is treatable, people who have completed treatment in the past have a higher risk of getting it again. In Cape Town, 30% of people with TB have previously completed treatment. Existing vaccines do not effectively prevent TB from coming back. For that reason, we need to understand the biology of why people develop TB again after completing initial treatment, so that we can be able to develop effective vaccines or other methods to prevent it. Scientists have found that changes in the gut microorganisms due to TB treatment, might make it easier for Mtb to cause TB. These microorganisms may also shape how the body defends itself against Mtb. This led us to think that the gut microbiome will be different between people who never had TB, who had TB once and who had it multiple times. These differences could be linked with immune responses that make the body vulnerable to TB. We want to evaluate this by describing the gut microorganisms and how the differences affect the host defences in these three groups of people. We will perform the gut microbiome analysis in stool samples and immune response profiling in blood of the above-mentioned groups of people. We will also stimulate immune cells from our study participants with some of the recognisable parts of Mtb to see how the host cells will react, which will allow us to identify which parts of the Mtb can be investigated further for vaccine development to prevent getting TB again.
Find out more about Dr Happy Tshivhula here.
