Investigating oxygenated sterols and lipids in tuberculosis (TB) infection: human’s friend and pathogen’s foe?

Project Code

MRCIIAR25Ex Borah Slater 

Research Theme

Infection, Immunity, Antimicrobial Resistance and Repair

Project Summary Download

Summary

“Tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a devastating infectious disease causing over one million human deaths every year. We urgently need new drugs/therapies to fight the accelerating problem of drug resistance in TB. Oxygenated sterols: oxysterols and oxygenated lipids: oxylipins are biologically important molecules in metabolism, infection and immunity and are emerging new targets for anti-TB drug development. However, the precise role of these molecules in infection is not clear. This project will investigate which oxysterols and oxylipins are important in TB and how they boost human host’s defence against the pathogen to provide new drug targets.

Lead Supervisor

Dr Kushaboo Borah Slater

Lead Supervisor Email

k.borah-slater@exeter.ac.uk

University Affiliation

Exeter