tuberculosis Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Four Advances That Could Change Tuberculosis Treatment

The AHA! Team — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 05:47:50 +0000

American Chemical Society via EurekAlert! – As of early 2025, tuberculosis cases are increasing in the U.S. As of early 2025, tuberculosis cases are increasing in the U.S. This disease, often shortened to TB, causes significant lung damage and, if not treated, is almost always lethal. World TB Day on March 24 raises awareness about the disease and commemorates Robert Koch’s discovery of the source bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. More than a century later, scientists continue refining TB diagnosis methods and treatment strategies, some of which are in these four ACS journal articles. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org. 1. Fluorescence for a faster TB diagnosis. Currently, testing saliva samples for M. tuberculosis is time-consuming because of the bacterium’s slow growth and resistance to stains used in imaging. To develop a faster method, researchers targeted a protein that the bacterium uses to steal iron ions from its host’s cells. In a study published in ACS Central Science, the team explains how to label the iron-transporter protein with a fluorescent tag, which turns on after releasing the iron inside the M. tuberculosis cells. In separate tests on saliva from 11 people diagnosed with TB, the fluorescence technique identified infectious levels of the bacterium within 10 minutes. 2. White blood cell-focused M. tuberculosis therapy. A type of white blood cell called a macrophage gets taken over during a tuberculosis infection, becoming an incubator for the pathogen. So, researchers report in ACS Infectious Diseases that they have developed sugar-coated nanoparticles that get absorbed by infected macrophages. And once inside, the nanoparticles interrupted critical cellular pathways and prompted the damaged cells to be recycled. In infected mice, 6 weeks of nanoparticle treatment significantly reduced the amount of M. tuberculosis in the lungs. 3. A potential nasal treatment for tuberculous meningitis. If M. tuberculosis reaches cerebrospinal fluid, the result can be tuberculous meningitis — a life-threatening inflammation around a person’s brain and spinal cord. To get the TB drug clofazimine across the blood-brain barrier, researchers have encapsulated it inside tiny particles and created a nasal spray. According to their study in ACS infectious Diseases, the spray didn’t adversely affect mice with tuberculous meningitis. A 4-week treatment significantly reduced the bacterial burden within the animals’ brains and lungs compared to untreated mice. 4. Light-activated particles inactivate bacteria. Many new TB cases are multidrug resistant. So, a research team wanted to improve treatment efficacy and reduce the risk of further antimicrobial resistance by creating a photoreactive therapy. They encapsulated light-activated particles inside nanometer-wide spheres. When the nanospheres were injected into mice, red laser light triggered the particles to produce reactive oxygen species that inactivated Mycobacterium marinum, a bacterium that causes TB-like illness in fish. The initial animal study results are published in ACS Omega. Additionally in March 2025, ACS Webinars and ACS Publications co-hosted a virtual event, “Disrupt & Destroy: Starving Tuberculosis with Smarter Science,” about innovative drug strategies and cutting-edge TB research. The webinar is available to watch on demand. ### Journal ACS Central Science To read the original article click here.

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New Biological Antibiotics Can Beat Tuberculosis

AHA Publisher — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 08:00:50 +0000

Brian Blum via Israel21c – Researchers at Tel Aviv University have demonstrated in laboratory mice that monoclonal antibodies can be substituted for antibiotics to hinder the growth of tuberculosis germs. It’s estimated that around a quarter of the world’s population is infected by tuberculosis. In Israel, there are about 200 cases a year. Antibiotics are the usual course of treatment, but antibiotic-resistant strains of tuberculosis are now as high as 40 percent in some countries. Monoclonal antibodies (derived from single cells) have been in the news as one of the most promising “cures” for Covid-19. Antibodies from patients who have recovered from a particular illness can then be injected into a sick person to stimulate the immune system. For the new research, antibodies were isolated from a recovered tuberculosis patient. After the antibodies were introduced to mice infected with tuberculosis, the mice recovered. This marks the first time that researchers have managed to develop a “biological antibiotic” from human antibodies. The study was led by Dr. Natalia Freund and doctoral candidate Avia Watson at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical Faculty, and carried out in collaboration with labs in the United States and China. The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The use of monoclonal antibodies – the basis behind immunotherapy – has in recent years changed the way physicians treat cancer, autoimmune diseases and viral infections such as Covid-19. “Antibiotics are highly efficacious and cost effective, and therefore for the last years have been our only weapon against bacterial infections,” Freund explains. “Unfortunately, antibiotics become less and less effective, and in the main cases of drug resistance, physicians are empty-handed in finding an appropriate treatment for their patients. Therefore, new ways to kill bacteria are urgently needed.” Freund called the new study “an initial proof-of-concept of employing monoclonal antibodies as an effective therapy in combating bacterial pathogens.” The monoclonal antibodies produced in Freund’s lab work against three different strains of the tuberculous bacteria, and she expects they will be effective against other strains that were not investigated, as well. The antibodies Freund isolated inhibited bacteria growth and reduced bacterial levels by 50% in mice compared with mice that were not treated. “The model that has proven successful in this study will enable us to extend our future work to include other diseases such as pneumonia and staphylococcus infections,” Freund says. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Israel21c click here.

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Israeli Immune-Response Algorithm Could Aid TB Diagnosis

AHA Publisher — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 07:00:20 +0000

ISRAEL21c Staff via Israel21c – An Israeli algorithm that predicts the immune response to a pathogen could lead to early diagnosis for such diseases as tuberculosis. Just as first impressions set the stage for the entire course of a relationship, first impressions set the stage for how the cells of our immune system react when meeting a new microbe, according to Israeli researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science. This new insight led the researchers to develop an algorithm that may predict the onset of such diseases as tuberculosis. Their findings were published July 22 in Nature Communications. The phenomenon is explained by lead author Roi Avraham from the Institute’s Biological Regulation Department: “When immune cell and bacterium meet, there can be several outcomes –the immune system can kill the bacteria; the bacteria can overcome the immune defenses; or, in the case of diseases like tuberculosis, the bacterium can lie dormant for years, sometimes causing disease at a later stage and sometimes remaining in hibernation for good. We think that the junction in which one of those paths is chosen takes place some 24 to 48 hours after infection.” Noa Bossel Ben Moshe and Shelly Hen-Avivi in Avraham’s group began by introducing immune cells from blood samples to Salmonella bacteria. Using a method developed in recent years, partially at the Weizmann Institute, they sequenced the gene activity in thousands of immune cells to see what each cell looked like as it responded to the Salmonella and mapped the activation profiles of each. This process revealed patterns not seen in standard lab tests, and it seemed to confirm their hypothesis – there were indeed differences that enabled them to trace responses from the initial meetings to the later outcomes. Hoping to connect their results to real-time blood tests in real patients, the scientists developed an algorithm that would then enable them to extract similar information individual blood cells from standard data sets. “The algorithm we developed,” said Bossel Ben Moshe, “can not only define the ensemble of immune cells that take part in the response, it can reveal their activity levels and thus the potential strength of the immune response.” The first test of the algorithm was in blood samples taken from healthy people in The Netherlands. These samples were infected, in a lab dish, with Salmonella bacteria, and the immune response recorded. Comparisons with existing genomic analysis methods showed that the standard methods did not uncover differences between groups, while the Israeli algorithm revealed significant differences tied to later variations in bacteria-killing abilities. Then they tested whether the same algorithm can be used to diagnose the onset of tuberculosis, which is caused by a bacterium that often chooses the third way – dormancy — and thus can hide out in the body for years. Millions Still Die of TB Every Year Up to a third of the world’s population carries the tuberculosis bacterium, though only a small percentage of these become ill. Still, some two million die of the disease each year, mostly in underdeveloped areas of China, Russia and Africa. The researchers applied their algorithm to blood-test results found in a British database that followed patients and carriers for a period of two years. They found that the activity levels of immune cells called monocytes could be used to predict the onset or course of the disease. “The algorithm is based on the ‘first impressions’ of immune cells and Salmonella, which cause a very different type of illness than mycobacterium tuberculosis,” said Hen-Avivi. “Still, we were able to predict, early on, which of the carriers would develop the active form of the disease.” Once tuberculosis symptoms appear, patients have to take three different antibiotics over the course of nine months, and antibiotic resistance has become rampant in these bacteria. “If those who are at risk of active disease could be identified when the bacterial load is smaller, their chances of recovery will be better,” explained Avraham. The researchers intend to expand their own database on tuberculosis and other pathogens so to as to refine the algorithm and work on developing the tools that may, in the future, be used to predict who will develop full-blown infectious diseases. To read the original article click here. For more articles by Israel21c click here.

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