August 07, 2015
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NIH grants $2 million for TB treatment research

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The National Institutes of Health has awarded researchers a 4-year, $2,075,078 grant to reduce the course of time anti-tuberculosis drugs typically take to cure the disease, according to a press release.

The typical course of action in treatment usually lasts approximately 6 months, according to the release.

Jeff North

Jeff North

The goal with this research is to find what happens in the meeting between the drug and mycobacterial membrane protein large 3.

“We know the drug is shutting that protein down and that’s having a beneficial effect,” Jeff North, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmacy sciences at Creighton University, said in the release. “We now have to see how it is shutting that protein down. If we can see that, we can design new generations of drugs that could help in cutting down the time it takes to undergo a [tuberculosis (TB)] treatment.”

With the availability of drugs, medical professionals to administer the drugs and social and environmental conditions, a long-term course of treatment is not ideal, North said.

By shortening the length of treatment, more people may be cured of the disease and there may be a lower incidence of drug-resistant TB strains.

“If we can take 6 months and make that 4 months or even 2 months, we can greatly reduce the pill burden and lessen the impact of some of the other factors involved, something like a civil war or unrest that can make it hard to get treatment to patients,” North said in the release.