Principal Investigator (PI)
The Foundation is providing £139,750 in support.
Flavia Sorrentino
GSK provides expertise and in-kind contributions in High Throughput Assays (HTA), in vitro pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling, and pre-clinical in vivo TB models. GSK is also providing access to Biosafety Level 3 facilities and GSK?s collection of compounds
M. tuberculosis is an obligate intracellular parasite whose success as a pathogen relies on its ability to evade the human immune system by residing and replicating inside macrophages. Data from the Av-Gay lab and others showed that Mtb targets host-signaling pathways to block the macrophage “normal” killing machinery, which is aimed at the isolation and destruction of invading microorganisms. While at the Open Lab, Flavia will perform a new high throughput screening aimed at identifying compounds that could enhance the macrophage ability to kill Mtb. This approach will utilize human macrophages, the “natural” host for Mtb, making this assay more likely to identify disease relevant inhibitors.