March 24 was World TB day, and the Crick marked the occasion by
holding a symposium covering the history and spread of the disease,
the basic biology, and the fight against drug resistance. Speakers
included experts from the Crick, including Anne O'Garra, Luiz de
Carvalho, Max Gutierrez and Rob Wilkinson, as well as researchers
from around the world, including Christopher Dye, Cliff Barry,
Andrew Nunn, Lalita Ramakrishnan, Katrin Mayer-Barber, David
Barros-Aguirre, Chris Abell and Veronique Dartois. Some of the
speakers' slides are available via the links on the right hand side
of this page.
It was a pleasure to coordinate the Crick's symposium with the
previous day's meeting organised by UCL and the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and we took the opportunity to hold
a joint dinner and to swap a speaker-the Crick's Douglas Young gave
a great talk at the UCL/London School meeting.
The meeting was a huge success: it was well-attended, the talks
were terrific, and the message cam through loud and clear that
although progress is being made in the diagnosis and treatment of
tuberculosis, there is still much to be done: TB is still a major
cause of death worldwide, with 1.5 million dying of the disease in
2014, the great majority in low- and middle-income families. TB
particularly affects HIV-positive people, and the threat of
multi-drug resistance is increasing. We hope and believe that the
Crick's multidisciplinary approach to biomedicine, in collaboration
with its university partners and the Sanger Institute, will help
reduce the burden of this disease.
Keith Peters, one of the champions of TB research at the Crick,
couldn't be at the meeting, but in appreciation of his efforts the
audience waved their best wishes at the end.
A selection of the speakers' presentations can be viewed via
the links on the right hand side of the page.