Tuberculosis and the Tubercle Bacillus

Book excerpt: Can today's innovative practices and molecular tools tame this ancient disease? One third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB), with about 10 million new cases annually. To combat TB and its agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the World Health Organization launched The End TB Strategy, which aims to slash the suffering and cost of TB by 2035. This makes the second edition of Tuberculosis and the Tubercle Bacillus, edited by Jacobs, McShane, Mizrahi, and Orme, an extremely valuable resource for scientists and clinicians. The editors have gathered their colleagues from around the world to present the latest on the molecular biology of M. tuberculosis and related species, the host-pathogen interactions that enable invasion, and the host's immune response to M. tuberculosis infection. The basic, clinical, and translational research presented in this book supports the goals of WHO's End TB Strategy by driving toward the development of effective vaccines, rapid molecular diagnostics, and anti-TB drugs. Creating an effective tuberculosis vaccine. Understand the innate and adaptive immune response to M. tuberculosis infection, its study in established animal models, and how this information is being used to develop new vaccines against TB. Formulating new antituberculosis drugs. Learn the challenges and methods for evaluating new drugs in preclinical trials with a focus on drugs that work against "persisters" and those that act on the electron transport complex and ATP synthase of M. tuberculosis. Overcoming the challenges of diagnosing tuberculosis. Review new diagnostic tools that are simple, rapid, affordable, specific, sensitive, and safe, including molecular-based diagnostic methods such as GeneXpert MTB/RIF. Using molecular, genomic, and bioinformatics tools to understand the biology and evolution of Mycobacterium. Explore current research on the molecular mechanisms that M. tuberculosis uses to evade the immune system, enter a state of nonreplicating persistence, and become reactivated. The second edition of Tuberculosis and the Tubercle Bacillus presents the latest research on a microorganism that is exquisitely well adapted to its human host. This pathogen continues to confound scientists, clinicians, and public health specialists, who will all find much valuable information in this comprehensive set of reviews.