Researchers find new effective therapeutic approaches to treat tuberculosis
Jul 28, 2022
Washington (USA), July 28 (ANI): The leading infectious disease around the world, tuberculosis, which affects around 25 per cent of the world's population, is still caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Drug-resistant strains have made it difficult to treat infections, but professor Helen Zgurskaya of the University of Oklahoma is spearheading research on new, potentially effective therapeutic approaches to the condition. The findings of the research were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study focused on understanding how recently discovered new inhibitors kill the pathogen. The study provides a biochemical foundation for understanding the mechanism of these transporters and their inhibition by small molecule compounds that will facilitate the development of novel effective antibiotics. Zgurskaya expects the next step would be to use the methods and techniques the team developed to analyse other inhibitors to identify those that are most effective, which will hopefully then go into clinical trials. For this research, the OU team collaborated with scientists from Colorado State University, Creighton University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
