At the IGTP TODAY

News

- Campus Can Ruti, Research

Screening high-risk groups for tuberculosis in low-incidence countries: a cost-effective strategy

A study led by researchers from IGTP, in collaboration with health economics experts from Can Ruti, UPF, and Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona, offers new recommendations for optimising tuberculosis screening programmes in low-incidence countries. Published in the journal Eurosurveillance, this work reviews various studies to determine if these programmes targeting higher-risk groups are economically effective.

- Institutional

Celebrating International Women's Day: the voice of our professionals

To commemorate International Women's Day, we asked four questions to researchers from various profiles at IGTP and professionals from different research support areas. The aim is to understand the difficulties they have faced as women in their professional field and to gain insight into their perspectives on the future.

- Innovation, Projects, Research

The new clinical trial CONSTAN testing of effectiveness of the RUTI® vaccine to shorten tuberculosis treatment times

The biotechnology company Archivel Farma has designed and set up a phase IIb clinical study called CONSTAN to explore whether administering the immunotherapy RUTI®, known as the RUTI® vaccine, along with the standard treatment for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) improves results. The principal investigator of the project is Dr Cristina Vilaplana, leader of the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit (UTE) at the Germans Trias I Pujol Research Institute (IGTP). The study has been approved by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) and the First Patient In will be welcomed in January 2022

- Research

A new study shows that multiple infections are common with multiple drug resistant tuberculosis

The IGTP has taken part in a study led by researchers from the IBV Biomedicine Institute of Valencia  published recently in Nature Communications. The study has increased the understanding of how genetic diversity arises in lung infections caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and how this is related to the development of antibiotic resistant variants. The study is based on surgical samples and data from tuberculosis patients form the SH-TBL cohort of the Experimental Tuberculosis Group (UTE) at the IGTP.

- Research

Research identifies six groups in the population more susceptible to the impact of the pandemic

Researchers from the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit (UTE) led by Dr Cristina Vilaplana, have presented the results of the project COM-COVID, a questionnaire for the public aimed at understanding the effects of the pandemic on society. The COM-COVID is an initiative of the SMA-TB Consortium, led by the UTE and the IGTP, with the collaboration of the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute and the Fight AIDS Foundation. Dr Maria Rosa Sarrias from the Innate Immunity Group and Dr Carol Armengol of the c-LOG research group at the IGTP have also taken part. The results have been sent in a report by email to all the participants of the questionnaire who requested it, and the research article can also be consulted at medRxiv.

The start of a new international clinical trial to improve treatment for tuberculosis with anti-inflammatory agents

The Experimental Tuberculosis Group at the IGTP has set up this trial, coordinated from Can Ruti, within the European project H2020 ‘SMA-TB’. The study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of adding acetylsalicylic acid or ibuprofen to the antibiotic treatments applied for tuberculosis. It is a phase II trial which will be carried out in South Africa and Georgia, two of the countries the WHO has in its sights to control this infectious disease. The trial has been prepared in the midst of the pandemic, with the added challenge of coordinating it with the restrictions and different stages of the epidemic in each of the countries involved.

- Campus Can Ruti, Research

Blocking the spread of HIV or favouring the spread of the tuberculosis bacteria, the flip side of the Siglec-1 protein's absence

In 2016, the Retrovirology and Clinical Studies group at IrsiCaixa discovered how the absence of the Siglec-1 protein, involved in modulating the immune system, blocks the spread of HIV throughout the body. Now, a study led by the same research group and the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) has shown that, on the other hand, this same deficiency favours the dissemination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the tuberculosis-causing agent.