Our Research
The Centenary Institute houses the largest tuberculosis (TB) research group in Australasia. We are the only facility in Australia permitted to work with experimental tuberculosis infection.
While TB remains relatively under control in Australia with around 1000 TB cases each year, it’s a different story for the rest of the world. With more than one third of the world's population infected with TB and 1.7 million people dying from the disease each year, TB remains a major threat for billions of people.
How does our research make a difference?
The Centenary Institute is working across several fronts to reduce the impact of TB, including:
Understanding the disease: there is still so much we don't know about this ancient disease. It's critical that we fill in these gaps of knowledge such as how exactly TB bacteria works, why latent TB infection progresses to active disease and how does TB continue to adapt and outsmart treatment.
Improving TB control: we're carrying out research in Vietnam looking at the best way to control the spread of TB infection in regions with high rates of this disease. This can help stop standard TB and minimise the risk of widely spread drug-resistant forms of TB (MDR-TB or XDR-TB).
Developing better treatments: the current treatments are more than 50 years old and are failing to be effective against the treatment of TB. To stay ahead of TB, it is critical that researchers design improved vaccines, drugs and tests.
Our tuberculosis (TB) research projects
We're working on a number of innovative TB research projects from working out how the TB bacteria hides in healthy cells to new drugs and tests to control TB.
Click here to find out more about our TB Research Projects.
International projects
The Centenary is also involved in international partnerships, projects and events to fight against TB. Read about our activity overseas.
Meet our TB team
We have a dedicated team of hard-working scientists working across our TB research projects. Meet the people behind the research.
Please join Centenary Institute and contribute to our research to overcome TB. Visit www.tb.org.au or click the button on the left to donate.
