Ian Orme is university distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology and pathology. / Courtesy of John Eisele/CSU Photography
• TB is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis and usually attacks the lungs; though, it can attack a person’s spine, brain or kidneys.
• Last year, there were more than 650,000 people diagnosed with TB worldwide.
• Tuberculosis is highly contagious bacteria that spreads from one person to the next on the air, borne by a sneeze or cough. People nearby may breathe in the bacteria and become infected with the sometimes-fatal disease.
• Symptoms include a bad cough lasting three weeks or longer, chest pains, coughing up blood, weight loss, fever and more.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Two Colorado State University professors tested the first new tuberculosis drug given a thumbs-up by the Federal Drug Administration in four decades.
The drug, discovered in 2005 by Johnson & Johnson, is called bedaquiline. The company announced that it received initial FDA approval Monday to use bedaquiline as part of a regimen to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, a deadly bacteria that settles in the lungs and afflicts people across the globe.
Ian Orme, a university distinguished professor, and associate professor Anne Lenaerts saw in test tube experiments in 2007 that it killed tuberculosis, or TB. The “added good news,” Orme said, was that it killed off multidrug-resistant strains, especially when mixed in with other commonly used drugs.
By itself and mixed with other drugs, the bedaquiline “dramatically” reduced treatment times, Orme said.
Conventional forms of tuberculosis can take six to nine months to treat, he said, while it could take two years to fight off multidrug-resistant strains.
Last year, TB plagued more than 650,000 people worldwide, commonly those in Africa and Baltic states. “So we’re in a rather scary situation here,” Orme said.
CSU considers itself among the top universities researching tuberculosis and has attracted more than $93 million in funding since 1981, according to a university news release. Top funders include the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
When Orme co-founded CSU’s Mycobacteria Research Laboratories more than 20 years ago, there were just a couple of people on board. Now, more than 100 researchers are a part of the team.