Mycobacterial Research

Group Head: Professor Warwick Britton

Tuberculosis (TB) represents a global health burden of staggering proportions. More than 2 billion people, or one third of the world's population, are infected with the bacteria responsible.

A number of major obstacles exist toward controlling TB. The current vaccine Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), developed almost 90 years ago, is ineffective and does not control the spread of the disease.

Another challenge is the rapid emergence of M. tuberculosis strains resistant to many of the antibiotics used to treat TB. Alarmingly some strains are resistant to all known treatments.

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 proteins from M. tuberculosis and M. leprae.

In addition, we are studying how Mycobacterium leprae, the cause of leprosy in humans, changes cellular gene expression in Schwann cells, the host cell which coats peripheral nerves. Leprosy is one of the commonest causes of peripheral nerve damage.