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One of the yearly highlights in TB research is the Union World Conference. The 49^th edition was hosted by the city of The Hague and the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation from 24^th until 27^th of October 2018. This gathering of clinicians, public health workers, policy makers, researchers and advocates serves as an unique platform for a global public health response to TB and lung pollution with a special focus on resource-limited settings. The message this year was: “Declaring our rights: social and political solutions’

PanACEA consortium members Martin Boeree, Stephen Gillespie, Michael Hoelscher, Rob Aarnoutse, Peter Donald, Andreas Diacon, Gerry Davies, Elin Svensson, Celso Khosa, Lindsey te Brake, Issa Sabi, Carlijn Litjens, Nyanda Ntingingya, Patrick Phillips, Derek Sloan, Stellah Mpagama, Norbert Heinrich, Blandina Mmbaga, Celso Khosa, Christina Manyama and many more contributed to the message with presentations and active participation.

In the beginning of October the PanACEA Coordinator Martin Boeree travelled to Tanzania, Uganda and Gabon to continue the last site assessments of 2018, accompanied by lab coordinator Lavinia Rodney and project managers Lindsey te Brake and Rutger Spoor. We were happy to see the study teams of IHI, NIMR MMRC, KCRI (Tanzania), MML (Uganda) and CERMEL (Gabon) preparing for the upcoming trials that will start in 2019. The sites are well are on track.

The South African Medical Research Council interviewed Professor Andreas Diacon, founder and CEO at TASK Applied Science, on the future of TB treatment. TASK performs clinical trials in TB and has been a partner in the PanACEA consortium since the first EDCTP granting phase.

New and improved drugs are necessary to increase the effectivity of treatment of TB, Professor Diacon explains, but improvement of diagnostics and development of vaccines are essential as well to eradicate the disease. Such a multi faceted strategy requires a concentrated effort of many players globally. Specific to the African context he argues that the scientific agenda should yield a robust and cost effective overall strategy.

You can watch the interview here:

Monday 11^th June until Wednesday 13^th June delegates from all over the world assembled for the MBLA Conference at the University of St Andrews, School of Medicine. The conference was organized and sponsored by the University of St Andrews and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), in cooperation with the PanACEA Biomarkers Expertise Core. The conference consisted for a large part of practicalities that successfully trained the participants in Molecular Bacterial Load (MBL) assay and analysis.

This MBL assay was developed through PanACEA Capacity Development and the PANBIOME study. The MBL assay is quite easy to master but this novel quantitative method will significantly speed up the advancement of clinical trials and save resources. It allows for a smaller sample size and a more rapid and accurate identification of viable TB bacteria. The assay performs well in different laboratory circumstances, different aspects of TB diagnostics and treatment monitoring.

MBL assay will be rolled out to many PanACEA trial sites. This will build the capacity of Southern centers to deliver cutting edge microbiological methods and expand their opportunities to perform research.

From June 12-14^th the EDCTP held a three-day competency training workshop in health research ethics, Good Clinical Practice and Good Clinical Laboratory Practice in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The goal of the workshop was to improve the skills and capabilities of the participants to become a “Trainer-of-Trainers” or focal person within the research networks or regions within which the EDCTP projects are operational. Attending on behalf of the PanACEA project was Bariki Mtafya, head of the laboratory Sciences at NIMR-MMRC, Tanzania.