Researchers at the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have decoded the gene map of a strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB).
They believe that the mutations their works has identified will help develop better treatments. They have also sequenced another dangerous strain called multidrug-resistant TB and more common strains and found mutations that may explain how the disease resists antibiotics.
"Tuberculosis is a major threat to global public health that demands new approaches to disease diagnosis and treatment," said Megan Murray, one of the project's principal researchers. "By looking at the genomes of different strains, we can learn how the tuberculosis microbe outwits current drugs and how new drugs might be designed."
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