Research programmes

The CBTBR is focused on trying to understand how mycobacteria adapt to growth conditions.

• How do they adapt their genome to alleviate the effects of restrictive growth conditions? More specifically, by what mechanisms can mutations be generated and fixed in a population growing in the presence of antibiotics?

• How do they adapt their physiology in the face of the human immune response? How is it that for up to decades they remain undetected yet viable, and - even if exposed to antibiotic treatment - and still able to emerge and produce active disease?

• How do they adapt to resume active growth once favourable conditions arise in the host granuloma? What role do resuscitation-promoting factors play in modulating the fluidity of the cell wall's peptidoglycan, thereby enabling growth and subsequent division?