Press release from 12.03.2020

Robert Koch Institute Berlin

Susanne Glasmacher Press and Public Relations

World Tuberculosis Day 2020 - Progress and targets

The year 2020 marks the beginning of a decade that will be decisive for the elimination of tuberculosis," said Prof. Dr. Lothar H. Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute, on World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March → read more ...

https://idw-online.de/de/news743176

Press Release December 11, 2019

Clinic of the University of Munich

Philipp Kressirer Kommunikation und Medien

Tuberculosis: New drug substance BTZ-043 is being tested on patients for the first time

The Tropical Institute at the Hospital of the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich is currently conducting a clinical study led by Professor Michael Hoelscher. Since mid-November, the first tuberculosis patients in Cape Town, South Africa, have been treated with the new drug substance BTZ-043 for the first time. The study is carried out within the PanACEA consortium in cooperation with the TASK Applied Science Clinical Research Centre, the University of Cape Town Lung Institute (UCTLI) and the Radboud University Medical Center.

To press release ...

http://idw-online.de/de/news728878

ANTI-TB Consortium Meeting in Karlsruhe

The BMFT-funded ANTI-TB consortium meets alternatingly at the partner institutes twice a year - usually in spring and autumn -. Representatives of all partners and work packages come together to assess progress and synchronize the work of the consortium.

From May 5th to 6th 2019, the third consortium meeting took place at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (Project partner: Claus Feldmann) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). During the meeting, all partners presented their recent results to be discussed by the all participants.  On the second day, all partners discussed the next steps and upcoming tasks for the second half of the funding period (2017-2020).

Reading tip: Nanoparticles - Use in medicine

Nanoparticles can provide valuable services in many areas of medicine: whether in diagnostics, e.g. in the early detection of various types of cancer, or in therapy, through the development of so-called nanocarriers, which can transport drugs specifically to the sources of disease. Helmholtz Center Munich, in cooperation with the German Centre for Lung Research (DZL), has now published an overview article on the current state of research and the future of medical nanoparticles on its Lung Information Service portal: https://www.lungeninformationsdienst.de/forschung/nanopartikelforschung/nanomedizin/index.html#c122989

Congratulations: Scientist from the ANTI-TB team receives “Winfried Möller Research Award”

02.06.2019. Benedikt Huck received the "Winfried Möller Research Award" at the 22nd Congress of the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) in Montreux / Switzerland, 2019. Benedict Huck is a PhD student in the ANTI-TB team "Drug Transport" in Claus-Michael Lehr’s group at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research (HIPS) in Saarbrücken.

This award is given in memory of Professor Winfried Möller - who died in 2017 - by his family, friends and colleagues under the patronage of the AtemWeg Foundation. The €500 prize is awarded to young scientists for successful research in Prof. Möllers' field on aerosol particles and their interactions in the lung.

This biennial international conference brings together over more than 200 aerosol scientists, pharmacists, clinical doctors and regulatory authorities from all over the world.

The BMFT-funded ANTI-TB consortium meets alternatingly at the partner institutes twice a year - usually in spring and autumn -. Representatives of all partners and work packages come together to assess progress and synchronize the work of the consortium.

On October 4 - 5, 2018, the project partners met at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) in Hanover. The coordinator, Professor Ulrich E. Schaible (Research Centre Borstel), welcomed 20 participants, including Dr. Lisette Leonhardt, VDI/VDE-IT, and the external consultant of the network, Dr. Thomas Hesterkamp, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research/TPMO, as guests, to the second meeting. The project partners reported on the progress of the individual subprojects. During the meeting, the results and the next steps were presented and discussed.

On the following day, all participants had the opportunity to visit the Fraunhofer ITEM (partner: Dr.-Ing. Katharina Schwarz, center of picture) and learn about the different projects at ITEM.

With small particles against tuberculosis: BMBF supports nanomedical research project to fight against therapy-resistant pathogens

Over the next three years, the ANTI-TB research consortium will receive 2.8 million Euros of funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The aim of the project is use nanocarriers to improve therapies of antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. The project partners include the Borstel Research Centre, the Leibniz Institute for Medicine and Biosciences (FZB), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine Hanover (ITEM), the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU-HW) as well as the biopharmaceutical company Rodos Biotarget GmbH (RBT). The Borstel Research Centre is the coordinator of this innovative research network. Rodos Biotarget is responsible for the commercialization of the research and development results.

With 2.2 billion infected people worldwide, tuberculosis is the most important bacterial infection in humans. According to the WHO, 10.4 million people worldwide contracted tuberculosis in 2015 alone and 1.8 million died as a result of the infection. The fight against tuberculosis is hampered by the increased occurrence of therapy-resistant strains of the pathogenic agent, which is further accelerated by therapy drop outs. "Patients with multi-drug resistant or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis must take medication for up to 24 months - with sometimes severe adverse effects. With our new therapeutic approach, we aim to target specifically the infectious foci in order to enhance local drug concentrations, shorten duration of therapy and minimize systemic adverse effects. Thereby, we hope to increase the willingness of patients to stick to the therapy to the very end and reduce drop-out rates to 50%" said Prof. Ulrich E. Schaible, Director of the Program Area Infections at the Borstel Research Centre and coordinator of ANTI-TB.

In order to improve tuberculosis therapy and limit further development of resistant strains of the tuberculosis agent, ANTI-TB follows a nanomedical approach by constructing nanocarriers of only a few nanometers in diameter and a modified surface carrying address molecules for infected cells. These nanocarriers are loaded with novel antibiotics should specifically target infectious sites in the lung. "The aim of our joint project is to develop antibiotic nanocarriers ready for clinical testing. The most effective variants will be designed for an aerosol or powder-based inhalation therapy," explains Professor Schaible. "Through inhalation, we hope to increase antibiotic concentrations in the infected lungs to minimize length of therapy and to reduce the burden of adverse effects for the patients.”

In the field of medical imaging and tumor therapy, nanomaterials are intensively studied, and some are already in clinical use. Nanocarriers as transport systems for antibiotics have so far been less developed. ANTI-TB starts exactly at this point. The interdisciplinary cooperation between chemists, pharmacists and microbiologists within this consortium will lead to the development of a new therapeutic concept that could also become applicable to other diseases in the future. While KIT and Rodos Biotarget are designing novel nanocarriers, ITEM and HIPS are developing inhalable formulations, the Pharmaceutical Institute of the University of Halle is carrying out toxicological studies. The FZB, with its expertise in tuberculosis research, uses appropriate infection models to investigate the efficacy of the new therapeutics against the tuberculosis agent. As an enterprise, Rodos Biotarget will finally generate the most effective formulations according to international quality standards ready to be marketed.

Against the background of increasing resistance of bacterial pathogens to antibiotics, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) established the program "Promotion of Diagnostics and Novel Therapies for the Treatment of Bacterial Infections" in 2016. Thereby, the BMBF hopes to advance the development of new diagnostics for the targeted use of antibiotics as well as the development of novel therapies for the treatment of bacterial infections in human medicine. The ANTI-TB research project was approved by the BMBF at the end of September and will start on October 1st, 2017.