Project description
Improved understanding of tuberculosis transmission for better control programmes
Tuberculosis (TB) control programmes' slow progress in reducing TB incidence has many causes, including lapses in the TB care cascade and insufficient incorporation of new knowledge about transmission in control efforts. There is growing consensus that asymptomatic individuals with active TB are likely to transmit the disease. The EU-funded TB-RECONNECT project will address the nature of TB transmission in connection with the host and pathogen biology to improve global and local control strategies. Research developments will include host blood transcriptomics analysis of infection status within the latent pool of individuals. Pathogen genome sequencing will enable high-resolution transmission quantification and epidemiological modelling to identify transmission timing and impact on global TB control.
Objective
The annual decline in tuberculosis (TB) incidence is not greatly different from that of the ‘90s, when no coordinated efforts in global tuberculosis control were in place. The failure of current TB control programmes to accelerate TB elimination has multiple causes, including losses of TB cases at the different steps of the TB care cascade, and a chronic lack of funding hampering innovation. Additionally, we have failed to halt transmission in many settings, as we have failed to incorporate our improved understanding of transmission in TB control programmes. Our current approach to controlling TB is focused on a narrow view of who is transmitting the disease (symptomatically active TB cases), while there is a growing consensus that the traditional latent/active dichotomy is no longer valid, and that asymptomatic individuals with active TB signatures are also likely to be transmitting the disease. There is a critical lack of high-resolution data from different settings on the contribution to the transmission burden of cases with different infection statuses. To fill this evidence gap, I propose synergizing three recent TB research developments; We can now use host blood transcriptomics to discriminate between infection status within the latent pool of individuals. We can now quantify transmission at a resolution not previously available, using pathogen genome sequencing. We can now use phylogenetic and epidemiological models to identify when transmission has happened. Combining these three key developments with TB cohorts from multiple settings, and available tools from bacterial population genetics, high-throughput functional genomics and infection biology, we will be in a key position to answer these burning questions about the nature of TB transmission and the host and pathogen biology behind this. More importantly, we will reconnect transmission to TB control, to inform major shifts in global and local control strategies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine pneumology tuberculosis
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
28006 MADRID
Spain
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