Grant: Foundation Grant

Lung tuberculosis (TB) is a leading infectious cause of morbidity and mortality in the developing countries and parts of developed countries including Canada despite decades-long use of BCG vaccine and antibiotics. Multi-drug resistant TB and HIV epidemic have made TB epidemic even worse. One reason for this situation is that the TB bacterium is a human pathogen and over the course of thousands of years it has evolved sophisticated ways to counter the works of our immunity. Built upon our past success, our current program aims to decipher the immune mechanisms underlying the failure of host defense to effectively control TB and apply new knowledge to developing the most robust vaccination strategies to combat it by using innovative approaches. We have confidence that our research program will ultimately lead to the commercialization of novel effective TB vaccines and technologies for human applications, hence contributing to the global battle to effectively control or even eliminate TB.