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Biomarkers for Tuberculosis
Biomarkers for TB Consortium is part of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative launched in 2003 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is supporting groundbreaking research projects to discover and develop scientific breakthroughs for preventing, treating, and curing diseases that cause millions of deaths each year in developing countries.
A grand challenge is a call for a specific scientific or technological innovation that would remove a critical barrier to solving an important health problem in the developing world with a high likelihood of global impact and feasibility. A grand challenge is neither the statement of the global health problem itself (e.g., malaria or AIDS) nor the request for a specific health intervention (e.g., a drug or vaccine), but the call for a discrete scientific or technological innovation which will break through the roadblock that stands between where we are now and where we would like to be in science, medicine, and public health.
The Grand Challenges are goal oriented under 7 goals encompassing thematic global health topics. A total of 14 Grand Challenges were identified through a call for submissions from more than 1,000 scientists and public health leaders around the world. Since 2005, 43 innovative research projects have been underway under this $436 Million program.
Our Project: Biomarkers of Protective Immunity Against TB in the Context of HIV/AIDS in Africa
Our GCGH project falls under GOAL 2: To create new vaccines.
The theme of Grand Challenge #6 is: Learn which immunological responses provide protective immunity.
Principal Investigator: Stefan H.E. Kaufmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Germany
Prof. Stefan H.E. Kaufmann leads an international consortium of 15 leading institutions across Europe, Africa, and the U.S. The focus of the study is to identify immune system differences between people who are exposed to tuberculosis and never become sick, and those who develop serious disease. The researchers are addressing the issue of TB in the context of HIV (people infected with both TB and HIV). The study results could help guide the design and testing of new intervention such as TB vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics, especially in areas with high HIV infection rates to combat this global public health problem.