Open Labs Fellow/s

Eva Habjan

GSK’s contribution

GSK R&D contributes with crucial scientific expertise in drug discovery, compound collection, automation equipment and data analysis for assay development, scale up to run the HTS, and hit validation.

Project Description

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is the world’s deadliest infectious disease with more than two deaths every minute (1).

We urgently need improved TB therapies. Attractive strategies for new drug discovery include targeting Mtb virulence factors (2) and sensitizing Mtb to existing drugs (3).

We have identified a particularly interesting novel virulence factor, which may both inhibit virulence and sensitize Mtb to existing drugs if targeted.

This project aims to identify and validate inhibitors of this virulence factor.

References:
(1) World Health Organization. Global tuberculosis report 2024. Webpage: www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/ (accessed June 2025)
(2) Allen et al. Targeting virulence: can we make evolution-proof drugs? Nat Rev Micro. 12, 300-308 (2014)
(3) Tyers and Wright. Drug combinations: a strategy to extend the life of antibiotics in the 21st century. Nat Rev Micro 17, 141–155 (2019)

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