U.K. Partnership to Research TB Testing Methods

Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria (CDC)

A collaboration between the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the U.K.’s national measurement institute in Teddington, England and Orla Protein Technologies, a biotech company in Newcastle upon Tyne, England has been awarded £91,000 ($US 144,000) by the U.K. Technology Strategy Board to investigate improved methods for the detection of tuberculosis (TB).

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says that TB is one of the world’s deadliest diseases, with one-third of the world’s population infected. Each year 9 million people contract and 2 million die from the disease. TB has become the leading killer of people who are HIV infected.

Current methods of TB detection suffer from a need for large sample volumes, long preparation times and different results from different patient groups. This has led to a demand for more sensitive and rapid diagnostic processes.

The project begins this month and involves molecular and biological diagnostics, and measurement science and infectious diseases. The study plans to make use of techniques developed at NPL for the detection of mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) antigens — biomarkers which indicate disease — to assess the presence of MTB in a sample. These techniques will be supported by technology developed by Orla Protein Technologies for making protein patterned surfaces responsive to MTB biomarkers thereby simplifying the manufacture and use of biomarker detection.