Principal Investigator (PI)
The Foundation is providing £75,560 in support.
Lluís Benitez
GSK provided in-kind contributions (including facilities and expertise from supporting scientists to run the HTS from GSK?s collection of compounds).
Tuberculosis is an old disease which continues to represent a significant challenge for global health affecting 10 million people and killing 2 million people each year. The emergence of multi-and extensive drug-resistance is a major problem, the cause of which is largely attributed to the misuse of antitubercular agents. At the moment, treatment is comprised of a combination of at least three different drugs that must be taken for a period of six months or longer. The burdensome side effects and the length of treatment often means patients don’t finish the course, which leads to a rise in drug-resistant strains. During his time at the Open Lab, Lluís focused on finding new classes of antibiotics to treat TB over a shorter period of time. Lluís ran a High Throughput Screening (HTS) of GSK´s compound sets to provide new starting points for the identification of potent and selective inhibitors against TB.