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SUMMARY:Bacterial genetics and tuberculosis drug development
DTSTART:20120918T140000
DTEND:20120918T153000
DTSTAMP:20260407T043840Z
UID:29ccc838296f090d8812ab0be36c9a18fbae45eec4b55a2bfece3023
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Dirk SCHNAPPINGER\nThe number of new tuberculosis (TB) case
 s is still rising and reached almost 10 million in 2010. This extraordinar
 y impact on public health is in part due to drug-resistant Mycobacterium t
 uberculosis (Mtb) strains\, which have acquired resistance to four or more
  TB drugs. Such extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains continue to emerg
 e and spread\, and are associated with particularly poor treatment outcome
 s. Success rates for treating XDR-TB are generally low and mortality can r
 each 100 percent for outbreaks in patients co-infected with HIV. New drugs
  are thus needed to limit the impact of TB on global health.\nSignificant 
 progress has been made in the identification and characterization of new a
 ntimycobacterial compounds. However\, the attrition rate in drug discovery
  is high and it is unlikely that the relatively small number of current le
 ad compounds will solve the global health problems caused by (drug-resista
 nt) TB. Target validation and the identification of new lead compounds\, t
 herefore\, represent significant bottlenecks in TB drug development. To ov
 ercome one of these obstacles we developed genetic tools to conditionally 
 inactivate Mtb genes in vitro and at different time points of an infection
 . In this seminar I will discuss the different experimental strategies we 
 use to conditionally silence Mtb gene expression and how we apply bacteria
 l genetics to facilitate TB drug development.
LOCATION:SV 1717a http://plan.epfl.ch/?lang=fr&room=sv+1717a
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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