Large Leiden symposium throws XL spotlight on TB bacteria
More than 1.3 million people worldwide die of tuberculosis (TB) each year, making research on its prevention and control essential. Researchers from various disciplines in Leiden are studying TB. A symposium on 24 March will highlight different activities in the hope of boosting nationwide collaboration.
It may sound somewhat crude but Leiden and TB have a close relationship. Back in the 17th century, Leiden scholar Sylvius discovered the presence of nodules in the lungs, a typical symptom of TB. And in a later lecture, German physician Robert Koch revealed the bacterium that causes TB and the different methods he had used to make this discovery. This speech – considered by some the most impressive academic lecture of all times – was given on 24 March 1812, later to become the date of World TB Day.
Shoulders of giants
Standing on the shoulders of these giants, researchers in Leiden continue to conduct TB research from numerous perspectives. This is essential because different strains of the disease can be found all around the world, and it claims more than 1.3 million lives each year. These are mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. The KNCV Tuberculosis Fund calls the disease ‘the forgotten pandemic’. The entire chain of TB prevention and control is studied at Leiden University: from understanding the mycobacterium that causes the disease to developing new drugs and vaccines.
Research activities coming together
All these research activities at Leiden are coming together in a symposium on when else but 24 March 2025. The organiser is the Leiden interdisciplinary Tuberculosis Consortium (LiTBC): a collaboration between various Leiden institutes that have worked together for some time to promote research on TB and related mycobacterial infections (including leprosy) and their treatment.
Several disciplines are represented at the LiTBC. Biologists, including symposium organiser Annemarie Meijer, are researching the immune defence and survival strategies the bacterium uses to evade the immune system.
The Institute of Biology Leiden and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry are looking for new antibiotics to fight the bacterium, and researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (including Simone Joosten and Annemieke Geluk) are developing and testing vaccines and diagnostic methods to use in the field for the earliest possible identification of the diseases in patients.
And at the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research, Matthias Barz is researching using nanodrugs, a method of delivering effective anti-TB drugs to the right place in the body. For its part, the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Studies is helping model the formation of granulomas – the lung nodules Sylvius observed – to learn more about the disease.
The symposium will also look at the attention the disease receives around the world. ‘TB is still taboo in many countries, with infected people being excluded from society’, says Joosten. ‘Which is appalling.’
Next research generation
The symposium will look further than the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, says Meijer. ‘Infections with related bacteria, such as Mycobacterium avium, are soaring. In the west too – also in the Netherlands. These bacteria have a naturally high resistance to antibiotics, causing a very high death rate. Over a quarter of patients die within a few years because the infection is not easy to treat. So another aim of our symposium is to bring people together who research different types of mycobacterial infections.’
This seems to be working: over a hundred people from national research groups, public health service branches and expertise centres have already signed up for the symposium – as have many PhD candidates and postdocs. ‘But there’s room for more’, says Meijer. ‘The symposium is part of my Dutch Research Council (NWO) XL project, which focuses on boosting national collaboration on mycobacteria. The more, the merrier!’