Mycobacterial Research

Group Head: Professor Warwick Britton

Tuberculosis (TB) infects one third of the world's population, causing over two million deaths per year. The Mycobacterial Group aims to contribute to the control of tuberculosis through the development of more effective vaccines and the identification of possible targets for new drugs against M. tuberculosis infection. In addition, as infection with M. tuberculosis has such profound effects on the host, we hope to discover new information about how the immune system responds to infection in general. This will be relevant to the control of many different infections of humans.

Research focus

Our main focus is to understand how the host responds to infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the most successful chronic bacterial infection of humans and how to make more effective vaccines against this infection.

We are also exploring how the bacterium responds to infection in the host by changing the genes it expresses after it invades host cells, and the function of selected mycobacterial proteins.

In addition, we are studying the function of proteins from Mycobacterium leprae, the cause of leprosy in humans, and which stimulate immune responses and could be used to aid the diagnosis of leprosy infection.