About World TB Day

On 24th March, the world commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We take this opportunity each year to highlight contemporary research innovation and future challenges in tuberculosis (TB) research. TB affects individuals, communities, the economy and entire health systems of the countries affected. Dr Robert Koch was one individual and TB is much larger than any one person, institute or discipline of research.  This collection invites research papers, opinion pieces, data sets, methodology, video and any other content through which the open sharing would enhance and enrich TB research.
 
Collection Advisors-
Dr Helen Fletcher (LSHTM, committee chair)
Dr Fletcher gained her PhD in Medical Microbiology from the University of Leeds and became interested in tuberculosis (TB) in 1999 during her first postdoctoral position at University College London. In 2002 she moved to the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford as an immunologist for the first-in-man trial of a new TB vaccine, MVA85A. After 10 years at the Jenner Institute Dr Fletcher moved to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to establish her group, based in the Immunology and Infection Department, which focuses on immune correlates and the host response to TB vaccination. Dr Fletcher is currently the Deputy Director of the TB Centre: http://tb.lshtm.ac.uk/ at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and in 2016 she became co-chair of the T-cell Immunology working group for the Collaboration for TB Vaccine Discovery (CTVD) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr Molebogeng X Rangaka (UCL)
Dr Rangaka is an infectious disease clinician scientist with over 15 years' experience in TB and HIV research. Her research aims to contribute to global efforts to eliminate TB. She is an Excellence Fellow at the University College London and holds an honorary Associate Professorship at the University of Cape Town. Her work is translational and includes the development and testing of biomarkers and clinical trials of diagnostics and treatment for active and latent TB. These studies aim to reduce the pool of individuals at risk of active TB, limit transmission of TB, and contribute to health system strengthening to support TB control. Dr Rangaka obtained a Medical Degree from the University of Cape Town and was awarded her PhD in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (WoodRuff Medalist).
Dr Gillian Tomlinson (UCL)
Dr Tomlinson is a Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinician Scientist in the Division of Infection and Immunity at University College London (UCL) and an Honorary Consultant in Respiratory and Acute Medicine at University College London Hospital. Dr Tomlinson holds a medical degree from Edinburgh University and first developed an interest in tuberculosis (TB) during her MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship, which lead to a PhD in Immunology at UCL. Her current MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship focuses on understanding host factors that calibrate a balanced immune response in TB. Dr Tomlinson takes an innovative approach using molecular profiling of human immune responses in the tuberculin skin test in people with active TB to identify candidate genes that might determine clinical outcome and test their role in the zebrafish larval mycobacterial infection model-a natural host-pathogen interaction that accurately reflects human TB.
Dr Ankur Gupta-Wright (LSHTM)
Dr Gupta-Wright is a speciality registrar in Infectious Diseases and General (Internal) Medicine and clinical research fellow. His major research focus is the management of and reducing the high mortality associated with HIV-associated TB. Currently Dr Gupta-Wright is based full-time at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Clinical Research Programme in Blantyre, Malawi. He works as the international trial coordinator for the Rapid Urine-Based Screening for Tuberculosis to Reduce AIDS-Related Mortality in Hospitalized Patients in Africa Trial (STAMP) trial and is undertaking a PhD investigating the high mortality risk in HIV-TB coinfected patients with positive urinary diagnostic assays, combining immunology and clinical epidemiology. Dr Gupta-Wright teaches on the HIV and TB modules at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and at the College of Medicine, Malawi. He has clinical experience in developed (UK, Singapore) and resource-limited settings (Uganda, Sierra Leone, Malawi, South Africa), and is currently working at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre.