Baylor Receives $15.5 Million Contract from NIH for TB Research

Researchers hope to learn more about all aspects of tuberculosis (TB) with a $15.5 million contract awarded to Baylor College of Medicine by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

During the next seven years, TB specimens and blood samples will be collected from 500 patients in the Houston/Harris County metroplex for analysis in laboratories at Baylor and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

"We want to identify and describe at the molecular level numerous strains of the TB bacterium found in Houston, where the rate of tuberculosis is two to three times that of the rest of the United States," says principal investigator Dr. Edward Graviss, Baylor assistant professor of pathology and medicine. "This should help us determine whether people who know each other have the same type of TB bug, indicating a likelihood that one person transmitted it to the other."

The TB bacterium is transmitted by air from person to person. The bacteria usually attack the lungs and then spread to lymph nodes. If untreated, the disease can be lethal.

"Studies conducted in Houston over the last five years found that nearly two-thirds of the cases here occur in U.S.-born patients," Dr. Graviss says. "That would suggest that in Houston the disease is spread directly among high-risk groups or from high-risk groups into the general population."

High-risk groups include minorities, people of low socio-economic status and people with compromised immune systems, such as those with the human immunodeficiency virus.

As part of the NIAID contract, Baylor will collaborate with the City of Houston Health Department, the Harris County Hospital District and city clinicians, who will help identify patients with TB. Participants in the study will answer questions about their exposure to TB and provide four to five blood samples for one year. In addition to analyzing the strain of TB, investigators will use the data to study how the patient's body is responding to the disease and to treatment, which should be provided by the patient's physician. Treatment usually consists of four drugs for nine months.

TB exposure is usually confirmed by symptoms, such as coughing, fever and fatigue, a skin test and a chest X-ray. Dr. Graviss says the information from his study might result in a better test to diagnose TB and information about the human genetics of susceptibility to TB.

Much of the analysis at the NIAID will be performed at the Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, under the direction of former Baylor faculty member Dr. James M. Musser, laboratory chief.

"This contract provides critical TB research materials that should substantially enhance our understanding of the many aspects of tuberculosis, an infectious disease that kills 3 million people worldwide each year," Dr. Musser says.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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