Amongst infectious diseases, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading killer of adults in the world today, and poses a serious challenge to international public health work. So great is the concern regarding the magnitude of the modern TB epidemic that in April 1993 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared TB to be a "global emergency"; the first declaration of its kind in WHO history. Until recently, TB was considered to be a minor and decreasing problem in industrialized countries, even though M.tuberculosis is still the leading bacterial cause of human mortality in the world.  More than 10 million new cases of TB arise annually, causing more than 3 million deaths each year. The steady decline of TB in industrialized countries has also  recently undergone a dramatic reversal. Multidrug resistant strains of M.tuberculosis are spreading from  patients to the general population.  The explosive re-emergence of TB together with recent development of recombinant DNA technology in mycobacteria, has brought mycobacterial research, neglected over the past 20 years, to the forefront of microbiological research.

Dr. Av-Gay's Laboratory research is focused on the molecular pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in order to identify new targets for drug therapy. Using bioinformatic and pathogenomic tools, we have identified three molecular targets and we are now characterizing them for their contribution to TB pathogenesis. These targets are protein kinases of M. tuberculosis, mycothiol production and cholesterol utilization by mycobacteria. A major financial support to our laboratory is provided by TB VETS association. We are also members of Glaxo Wellcome ActionTB program and UBC Pathogenomics initiative. Special thanks for CMDR for hosting our lab web page.

 
Site Updated: September 1st, 2005 

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