|
Dear Colleagues,
As noted in the World Health Organization’s 2021 Global TB report, among the many tragedies of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is the undisputed fact that years of global progress in tackling TB have been reversed and, for the first time in over a decade, TB deaths have risen to 1.5 million people in 2020 (including among 214 000 people living with HIV). Disruptions to accessing care, reduced financial resources in many countries, and limited availability of essential TB services during the COVID-19 pandemic have all contributed to these losses.
The UCSF faculty, trainees, and staff working on TB are diligently reversing this lost ground. The achievements and impact by faculty associated with our Center over the past year are too numerous to list and have included influencing policy and guidelines, overseeing over 40 active NIH-funded projects, and authoring numerous high-impact TB publications, including in NEJM, in JAMA, Nature and Lancet series journals. Researcher spotlights and a list of publications from 2021 are listed below and provide snapshots of the productivity of faculty working in TB In 2021, we are also proud of the fact that our NIH-funded TB Research and Mentorship Program (TB RAMP) successfully recruited its first cohort of six early-stage talented TB scholars, and for the first time, the Center sponsored and awarded a Mentored Scientist Pilot Award in TB through the UCSF RAP mechanism.
The Center, with your support and engagement, has grown in stature, in accelerating collaborations, in funding, in connecting a community of TB scientists across the Bay Area and has also grown through the recruitment of talented junior faculty who have committed their careers to combatting the TB epidemic. We look forward to building on these achievements with you in 2022. We wish you a safe and happy New Year!
Payam Nahid, MD, MPH, Director
Rada Savic, PhD, Associate Director
Babak Javid, PhD, Associate Director
Center for Tuberculosis
University of California, San Francisco
| |
|
TB RAMP (Research And Mentorship Program) prepares early-stage investigators from UCSF and UC Berkeley for successful careers in TB research. This research education program promotes and catalyzes collaborations between fellows and faculty across disciplines; provides didactic research and methods training; offers individualized team mentoring/career development; and connects fellows with research opportunities. TB RAMP is funded by an NIH/NIAID R25 research education grant.
PI: Elizabeth Fair, PhD and Payam Nahid, MD
Congrats to our inaugural TB RAMP Scholar Cohort!
| |
|
Mentored Scientist Award in TB is a UCSF CTB-sponsored funding opportunity offered twice a year through the UCSF RAP (Resource Allocation Program) mechanism. The award is open to Early-Stage Investigators at UCSF and UC Berkeley to conduct TB-focused research. In addition to receiving research funds, the awardee will automatically be enrolled in TB RAMP. Funding is up to $40,000 in total costs.
| |
To learn more about eligibility and how to apply, click the links above or email Mariana Velleca, TB RAMP Program Coordinator, for more information. | |
|
The Role of Alcohol Use in Incident TB Infection and Active TB Disease Among Persons Living with HIV | Judith Hahn, PhD
Tuberculosis Epidemiologic Studies Consortium III | Priya Shete, MD, MPH & Jennifer Flood, MD, MPH
Novel Biomarkers to Shorten TB Treatment | Rada Savic, PhD
| |  |
|
Safety and tolerability of new and repurposed drugs for MDR-TB treatment | Gustavo Velásquez, MD, MPH
Better Evidence and Formulations for Improved MDR-TB Treatment for Children | Rada Savic, PhD
Accelerating evaluation and development of new combination tuberculosis drug treatments | Rada Savic, PhD & Payam Nahid, MD, MPH
| |
|
This is not a comprehensive list. To ensure your projects are represented on the
next newsletter or website, please fill out this survey.
| | |
|
Kendra Radtke, PhD, PharmD
Lab of Rada Savic, PhD
If you could direct funding sources to any element of TB research, where would you invest? Why?
I would invest in developing individual patient data warehouses that are Open Access to Investigators around the world, that would include programmatic data, electronic health record data, as well as clinical trial data from sites all over the world. The WHO recently announced a data platform for drug-resistant TB. Directing investments towards creating an Open Access source with large amounts of individual patient data will really enable major advancements in TB that wouldn't otherwise be possible or would be much more delayed with using the typical clinical trial designs. We've seen this sort of Open Access highly collaborative platform with COVID-19 efforts, helping to make major advancements quickly with data coming from different sites throughout the world via electronic medical record systems. With Open Access, we could answer questions much more rapidly, track resistance or patterns, and make huge advancements.
| |
Paul Ogongo, PhD
Lab of Joel Ernst, MD
Did anything surprise you while conducting your research?
We have taken a unique approach of monitoring T-cell responses to individual distinct Mtb antigens as opposed to Mtb antigen pools. What we have found exciting, yet unexpected, is our observation that a set of less studied antigens elicit a robust interleukin-17 (IL-17) responses while the more commonly studied antigens do not. This observation is important for two reasons; (i) it provides additional evidence of the existence of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) independent T-cell immunity in Mtb exposed individuals, and (ii) it demonstrates that distinct Mtb antigens elicit different T-cell responses, and we hypothesize that the differences in responses determine the outcome of Mtb infection. We are currently conducting experiments to test this hypothesis.
| |
|
|
Economic impact of tuberculosis mortality in 120 countries and the cost of not achieving the Sustainable Development Goals tuberculosis targets: a full-income analysis.
| Eric Goosby, MD, Mike Reid, MD
Precision-Enhancing Risk Stratification Tools for Selecting Optimal Treatment Durations in Tuberculosis Clinical Trials
| Marjorie Imperial, PhD, Patrick Phillips, PhD, Payam Nahid, MD, MPH, Rada Savic, PhD
Evaluating newly approved drugs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (endTB): study protocol for an adaptive, multi-country randomized controlled trial.
| Patricks Phillips, PhD, Gustavo Velásquez, MD
| | |
|
Emerging Therapeutics, Technologies, and Drug Development Strategies to Address Patient Nonadherence and Improve Tuberculosis Treatment
| Maria Garcia-Cremades, PhD, Belen Solans, PhD, Natasha Strydom, PhD, Craig Shaffer, Rada Savic, PhD
Mycobacterium tuberculosis precursor rRNA as a measure of treatment-shortening activity of drugs and regimens.
| Laurence Huang, MD, Maria Garcia-Cremades, PhD, Rada Savic, PhD, Payam Nahid, MD, MPH
Human antibodies targeting a Mycobacterium transporter protein mediate protection against tuberculosis
| Babak Javid, PhD
| |
|
This is not a comprehensive list. To ensure your publications are represented on the
next newsletter or website, please fill out this survey.
| |
2021 Research Breakthrough Highlight | |
New four-month treatment regimen for TB
Payam Nahid, MD, MPH, Rada Savic, PhD, and Patrick Phillips, PhD of UCSF
UCSF researchers in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control’s Tuberculosis Trials Consortium and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group published a landmark study this May that demonstrated a new four-month treatment regimen for tuberculosis (TB) was safe and as efficacious as the standard six-month therapy. UCSF researchers and their partners are the first to accomplish this feat in over 40 years.
| |
Sara Suliman, PhD, MPH is recognized as an outstanding young TB investigator, having already made contributions to TB biomarker discovery, TB immunology, and human genetic determinants of TB risk. At UCSF, Sara will expand the work on candidate risk genes to dissect mechanisms of progression to active TB disease and validating better point-of-care biomarkers to determine risk of progression to TB disease. She also plans to study the immune responses to Mtb and SARS-CoV-2 in co-infected patients. Sara comes to us from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Sara will have her appointment in the UCSF/ZSFG Division of Experimental Medicine led by Dr. Joel Ernst. | | |
Gustavo Velásquez, MD, MPH is an infectious disease physician and clinical researcher, and a widely appreciated young investigator with research interests in TB therapeutics. He is a co-investigator in multi-country Phase 3 randomized controlled clinical trials (endTB) evaluating novel shortened oral regimens for multidrug-resistant TB. At UCSF, he will expand his K08 work in TB therapeutics and interests in safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of newer drugs for drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB. Gustavo comes to us from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Gustavo will have his primary appointment in the UCSF/ZSFG Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine led by Dr. Diane Havlir. | | |
|
Adithya Cattamanchi, MD
ZSFG Mentoring Award
Priya Shete, MD, MPH
American Thoracic Society, Rising Start Award for Research
Laurence Huang, MD
SPARK Award from the UCSF Office of Diversity and Outreach
Belén P. Solans, PhD
David J. Goldstein Trainee Award, ASCPT
Presidential Trainee Award, ASCPT
Kendra Radtke, PhD, PharmD
Student Abstract Award, ACCP
Alex Eskandarian, PhD
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Pilot Award
| | |
|
Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, Carina Marquez, MD, and Diane Havlir, MD each received the Distinguished Citizens Award from The Commonwealth Club
Rada Savic, PhD
Leon I. Goldberg Early Investigator Award, ASCPT
Vincent Chang
Presidential Trainee Award, ASCPT
Best Poster Award, ASCPT
María García-Cremades, PhD
Presidential Trainee Award, ASCPT
New Investigator Scholarship, CROI
Jackie Ernest
Presidential Trainee Award, ASCPT
Top Poster Ribbon Recipient, ASCPT
| |
|
This is not a comprehensive list. To ensure your awards are represented on the
next newsletter or website, please fill out this survey.
| |
|
World TB Day 2022
UCSF Mission Bay
March 24, 2022
Time: TBD
2022 World TB Day will take place in-person and virtually, linking international partners with UCSF faculty. The 2022 theme is "The Clock is Ticking."
Save the Date & Registration information in Jan 2022.
| |
|
Keystone Symposia
January 23-26, 2022
Breckenridge, CO & Hybrid
Livestream registration open
Abstracts for poster acceptance: 1/8/22
CROI Conference
February 12-16, 2022
Denver, CO & Hybrid
Registration
Late-Breaking Abstracts: 1/5/22
| |
|
UCSF CFAR & CTB Presents Ann Ginsberg, MD, PhD
April 6, 2022 at 9:30am
Register Here
American Thoracic Society Conference
May 13-18, 2022
San Francisco, CA
Registration Info
BEAR Cage Competition for ESI's due Feb 2022
Abstract deadline passed
| |
|
The Center for Tuberculosis at UCSF wants to capture every success, funded project, and publication by its faculty. If you have news to share, please fill out this survey to keep our website updated.
CTB faculty and staff will be invited to participate in a strategic planning session in the first quarter of the New Year to strengthen the mission of the Center. Keep an eye on your inbox for more information.
Please contact CTB's Program Manager, Sarah K Hutchinson, for any CTB-related needs, questions, or input.
| | | | |
