Queen Mary joins £10m international programme to tackle drug-resistant tuberculosis

Bacteria gaining drug resistance

Queen Mary University of London is part of a new £10 million international research programme investigating the growing threat of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB).

The RESPECT-TB programme brings together 15 research organisations, public health bodies and national TB programmes across India, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, South Africa and Vietnam. Coordinated by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and Queen Mary, the programme aims to build one of the world’s most comprehensive evidence resources on drug-resistant TB.

Supported by a £10 million award from Wellcome, RESPECT-TB will combine genomic sequencing, laboratory science and detailed clinical data to investigate where resistance to newer TB medicines is emerging, how it develops and how it affects patients.

Tuberculosis remains the world’s leading infectious disease killer, causing an estimated 1.23 million deaths each year.

New six-month, bedaquiline-based treatment regimens have transformed the treatment of drug-resistant TB, with cure rates reaching around 90%. However, resistance to these medicines is now emerging in countries with high rates of TB, threatening to undermine one of the major advances in TB care in recent decades.

RESPECT-TB will investigate the prevalence of resistance to the newer drugs used to treat drug-resistant TB at population level. It will also examine the factors that contribute to resistance and treatment outcomes, helping researchers understand why treatments work for some patients but fail for others.

The programme builds on the internationally recognised CRyPTIC Consortium, led by the University of Oxford, and will generate a comprehensive dataset linking Mycobacterium tuberculosis genomes with laboratory measurements of drug susceptibility and patient outcomes.

This evidence will support improvements in diagnosis, treatment and surveillance, while helping to inform national and global TB policy.

Professor Graeme Meintjes, Clinical Professor of Infectious Diseases at Queen Mary University of London and Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, is a co-lead of RESPECT-TB.

He said: “What is exciting about RESPECT-TB is the opportunity to answer questions that clinicians and TB programmes are facing every day. By bringing together data and expertise from across five countries, we can better understand why treatment works for some patients and fails for others, and use that knowledge to help improve treatment decisions and patient care.”

The programme will also strengthen laboratory capability, genomic sequencing and research infrastructure through close partnerships with national TB programmes. This will help countries expand surveillance and respond more rapidly to emerging drug resistance.

RESPECT-TB is funded by Wellcome and coordinated by the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam a key partner. The Ellison Institute of Technology is contributing technical resources to support development of the RESPECT-TB laboratory database.