Clinical Tuberculosis Research

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s leading infectious killers, disproportionately affecting people in low-resource countries, and vulnerable populations across the globe. 

Our research group designs, conducts and translates high-quality clinical research to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB. We place particular emphasis on research in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where TB burden remains high and well-established partnerships ensure the development, evaluation and implementation of important innovations which are urgently needed to fight TB.

Our research focus

Prevention of TB

Preventing progression from latent TB infection to active TB is central to reducing transmission and long-term disease burden. Our research aims to improve diagnostic tools and optimising preventive treatment strategies. We focus on generating evidence to support safer, shorter and more effective preventive regimens, while addressing real-world challenges such as drug resistance among index-cases, safety and tolerability of new preventive regimens and their implementation in control programs.

Community-based active case finding

Waiting for people with active TB to seek care means that cases are often detected late, when the disease has advanced and transmission has already occurred in the household and the community. We investigate novel screening strategies to find TB cases in communities, bringing diagnosis and treatment closer to where people live and identifying infections earlier, even in asymptomatic disease stages.

New diagnostic tools

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of patients with TB, including timely detection of drug resistance, is fundamental to effective TB care and control. Delays in diagnosis and resistance detection contributes to ongoing transmission, poor treatment outcomes and creates potential for further drug-resistance amplification. A central pillar of our work is researching innovative diagnostic approaches in various clinical and programmatic settings, evaluating their performance, feasibility and impact under real-world conditions. This includes novel and precise technologies for resistance profiling to be integrated into patient care pathways, enabling faster clinical decision-making and more patient-centred, effective treatment strategies.

TB drug development and host-directed therapies

The global landscape of the TB treatment pipeline is primarily focused on introducing new active compounds and optimised treatment regimens to shorten treatment duration, improve safety and combat drug resistance more effectively. In addition, host-directed therapies are currently being developed to complement antimicrobial treatment by modulating the patient's immune response, with the aim of improving bacterial clearance, reducing inflammation-related tissue damage, preventing long-term lung damage and improving the quality of life of TB patients. Our group makes significant contributions to both the development of new TB drugs and host-directed treatment strategies.

Additional activities

Beyond conducting clinical research, our group provides scientific expertise to internal and external partners on protocol development, design and implementation of clinical trials in the field of TB. Team members serve as advisors and consultants to international research consortia and national TB programmes supporting the development of high-quality, context-appropriate studies in various settings.

Capacity strengthening and education are an important part of our work. We supervise PhD candidates and MSc students, along with building sustainable research network in partner organizations, institutions and countries.

AI-powered lung ultrasound for TB screening in primary care

Most TB patients in sub-Saharan Africa are treated at primary healthcare facilities that lack X-ray or molecular testing capabilities. The CAD LUS4TB project across Benin, Mali, and South Africa validates AI-assisted lung ultrasound for TB triage using mobile phone applications. Beyond TB, the technology enables multi-disease assessment including pneumonia and cardiovascular conditions – making diagnostic tools accessible where they are needed most. Read more

Host-directed therapies for drug-resistant TB

Rifampin-resistant TB carries a high risk of death, treatment failure and permanent lung damage. The EU-funded DRTB-HDT project is a phase 2 trial conducted across six countries which tests whether adding host-directed therapies – CC-11050, which reduces inflammation, or metformin, which boosts cellular antimicrobial activity – to standard treatment improves outcomes. If successful, these adjunctive therapies could increase cure rates and reduce the risk of lifelong disability in patients with drug-resistant TB. Read more

Ultrasound diagnostics for childhood pneumonia in Sub-Saharan Africa

Current pneumonia guidelines fail to distinguish severe bacterial infections from viral illnesses, resulting in inappropriate antibiotic use and missed TB cases. The Pan-African-EU partnership IMCI-PLUS is evaluating the use of point-of-care lung ultrasound in paediatric care through a trial involving 8,500 children across three countries. By developing AI-enabled tools and co-designed implementation strategies, the project aims to transform respiratory infection management. Read more