Welcome to the Working Group on New TB Drugs Blog
This Week in TB R&D – 24 August 2010
Last week, a paper was published in Nature by Matthew Berry, Christine Graham et al. which received a fair amount of notice. The authors presented data identifying a probable TB gene signature in people infected with TB.
Initially the investigators examined genome-wide transcriptional profiles generated from RNA extracted from whole blood, purified neutrophils, monocytes, and [...]
This Week in TB R&D – 17 August 2010
The novel antitubercular agent TMC207 (Tibotec, a Johnson & Johnson company) represents an impressive and important new chemical agent for addressing both drug sensitive and drug resistant TB. This compound – which is continuing to advance through clinical trials conducted by both J&J and the TB Alliance – selectively inhibits M.tb ATP synthase leading to disruption in the energy metabolism of both replicating and non-replicating organisms.
Open Forum 4: Key Issues in Drug Development
From Citizen News Service: The Open Forum 4 on key issues in tuberculosis (TB) drug development is all set to begin in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (18-19 August 2010). This Open Forum 4, will raise and address key issues in TB drug development, with a special focus on regulatory affairs. The Forum will include sessions on the current global TB drug development portfolio, key issues in the critical path to TB drug registration, designing pivotal trials, conducting registration trials in high TB burden countries, challenges in TB drug development for resistant disease and developing regimens containing multiple novel agents.
This week in TB R&D – 10 August 2010
This week we reposted an article from DailyFinance.com regarding a new antibactierial compound from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). GSK has recently published a Nature paper describing the 2.1 angstom crystal structure of Staphylococcus aureus DNA gyrase (a Type IIA topoisomerase) and DNA in complex with their new broad-spectrum antibacterial compound (GSK299423).
This Week in TB R&D- 3 August 2010
The need for the identification of novel TB drug targets and biomarkers has been highlighted in a few of our posts over the last several months. A recent epublication (online manuscript before print) in the Journal of Bacteriology by Jeremy D. Selengut and Daniel H. Haft highlights the use of comparative genomic profiling tools to [...]
This week in TB R&D – 7 July 2010
In our latest ‘Sanatorium Files’ post ‘Diagnosis Dilemma’, we commented on the current advances in TB diagnostics. We’re following up on this theme for the next couple of posts to share the scientific data supporting some of the most promising of these new diagnostic tools.
This year, two reports were published in the Journal of Clinical [...]
This Week in TB R&D – 29 June 2010
By far, one of the greatest needs in TB R&D is the identification of biomarkers. The value of biomarkers cannot be overemphasized. Briefly, we will highlight what biomarkers are, how they are used, and describe their importance and potential for significant impact for TB drug discovery.
This Week in TB R&D – 15 June 2010
On Friday, June 11th, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Tuberculosis Research hosted their annual scientific meeting and the WGND was there to cover the event. Approximately 100-200 people were present including persons from NIH and small pharmaceutical companies. This annual meeting is an opportunity for the epidemiological, clinical and basic researchers to relate their [...]
This Week in TB R&D – 8 June 2010
Our goal is to keep our audience up to date on the latest TB drug research & development. The past couple of months have seen a flurry of publishing activity. In order to present these to you quickly, we are diverging from our usual one-by-one analysis in favor of brief synopses with links to the abstracts or full paper for a few of these interesting papers.
This Week in TB R&D – 1 June 2010
A team of researchers led by Rainer Kalscheuer and Bill Jacobs at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York recently published a paper titled “Self-poisoning of M. tuberculosis by targeting GlgE in an alpha-glucan pathway” in Nature Chemical Biology (2010, vol 6, pg 376). From the perspective of basic biology, the work represents the first time a biosynthetic pathway from the disaccharide trehalose to alpha-glucan, a polysaccharide with several potential functions, has been described.
