Tuberculosis

The 102-year-old tuberculosis vaccine shrank liver cancer tumors in mice, which suggests it may be replicated in a human trial. If this was the case, the vaccine might prove successful in tackling this notoriously hard-to-treat cancer.

In a significant breakthrough, scientists have pinpointed signs of "pre-resistance" in bacteria for the first time, which they say could allow for better targeted therapies that nip superbugs in the bud before they develop resistance to drugs.

Because it can be hard to detect tuberculosis in young children, the disease may be quite advanced by the time it's diagnosed. A new test, however, is said to detect the presence of TB-causing bacteria up to a year before the disease itself occurs.

Scientists have uncovered a promising new pathway in the development of tuberculosis drugs, describing what they call a newly-discovered “keyhole” that can be targeted to starve tuberculosis-causing bacteria of the sustenance they need to survive.

Although it's crucial that people get vaccinated against tuberculosis, the vaccine isn't always very effective – at least, not when injected through the skin. New research, however, shows that it works much better when delivered directly into a vein.

The final results of a Phase 2b human trial into the efficacy of a new tuberculosis (TB) vaccine have been published, indicating safe long-term protection from the devastating disease in around half of the subjects vaccinated.

Tuberculosis is a difficult disease to treat, and help may now be coming from an unexpected source – a sea sponge.

Researchers at Stanford studying scorpion venom have identified a pair of compounds that were shown to kill off both staph and tuberculosis bacteria. And better yet, they were able to create synthetic versions of them in the lab.​

​In developing nations with limited infrastructure, obtaining vitamin supplements can be difficult. With that in mind, German scientists are now suggesting that people in such regions could fight tuberculosis (TB) by ingesting something else – oyster mushrooms that have been sitting in the sun.

Tuberculosis is currently curable, but the bacteria responsible for it are fast evolving resistance to our antibiotics, thwarting attempts to keep the disease under control. Scientists have found a new compound that can boost the power of existing antibiotics and even reverse the bugs’ resistance.

​Like so many other diseases, tuberculosis is becoming increasingly resistant to treatment by antibiotics. There may be hope, however, as scientists have developed a new vitamin-based treatment which could both halt the disease, and prevent antibiotic-resistance from developing further.

In resource-poor developing nations, tuberculosis is typically diagnosed by analyzing a smear of a patient's sputum with a standard microscope – a method that's somewhat problematic. Now, scientists have confirmed that getting rats to sniff the samples is a better way to go.