Peering into the black box of Tuberculosis-Computer modelling reveals the battle ground

Tuberculosis bacteria (bright green) inside the macrophage cells of a macaque monkey.

Here is an article by Kate McAlpine, describes easy understanding of Tuberculosis, how it infects, regulates and how the current work is going on.

"Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the world's most successful pathogen,"said Denise Kirschner, a professor of microbiology and immunology at U-M. "It's the #1 cause of death due to infectious disease in the world."

It has also been around for a long time, claiming victims as varied as Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederic Chopin, John Keats and the ancient Egyptian Irtyersenu. While it is best known for conspicuous symptoms such as coughing up blood, the secret to its success is in its insidious, latent form. Only about 10 percent of people infected with the bacteria get active TB right away – the other 90 percent might not even know they harbor the bug.

A person with a latent TB infection has no symptoms and cannot transmit the disease. Instead, the bacteria wait for a moment of weakness that may come in the form of age or illness, such as HIV. Then they may have the opportunity to infect a new population. "We don't understand why some people develop active or latent disease or why the latent disease reactivates," said Kirschner....Read more

See how researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering are working on combating TB and other disease.