Rutgers New Jersey Medical School receives $20 million for tuberculosis research
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) recently received $20 million in funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to oversee research on the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis, according to an article from Patch.
Jerrold Ellner, a professor in the Department of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and director of Research Innovations for NJMS' Center of Emerging and Re-Emerging Pathogens, said tuberculosis is a disease that requires universal attention.
"We're trying to develop new approaches to diagnose (tuberculosis)," he said. "To determine which among the exposed individuals is going to develop tuberculosis and also to map the treatment, because it is quite clear that our ability to control tuberculosis worldwide requires new interventions."
NJMS will invest the funding into the Regional Prospective Observational Research in Tuberculosis International (RePORT) program, a global organization that aids communal tuberculosis research as well as hosts various countries and their research.
Currently, RePORT has sites in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea and Uganda, Ellner said.
He said the U.S. recently became the coordinating center for RePORT and plans to improve the quality of the organization's services in different countries over the next few years.
RePORT will use the funding to improve existing facilities and prepare them to conduct medical procedures and scientific testing, Ellner said. He said he wants to develop a tool to better diagnose people for tuberculosis and make it adaptable so that it will work in different sites and countries.
One of the most challenging factors in treating tuberculosis is getting patients to keep up six months of treatment. If a patient is unable to complete the entire duration of their treatment, their tuberculosis may become more resistant, Ellner said.
Additionally, controlling the spread of tuberculosis is expensive due to the high amounts of medication and resources the treatment requires. Therefore, decreasing the duration of disease treatment will greatly simplify the process, Ellner said.
Ellner said RePORT aims to explore two subsets of tuberculosis control: subclinical tuberculosis, where a person may be carrying active tuberculosis but not exhibiting symptoms, and long tuberculosis, which is associated with long-term health repercussions from tuberculosis.
He said it would be beneficial if RePORT conducted long-term tuberculosis studies to determine the disease's impact on chronic lung disease and cardiovascular disease.
"That's why you need a program like RePORT to bring the best minds together because, without it, you are just studying the tip of the iceberg," Ellner said. "And what you are not studying often turns out to be more important than what you are (studying)."
