UAMS on Tuesday announced that researcher Lu Huang has received a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his pursuit of a more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine.
In a news release, UAMS said the five-year grant from the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will allow Huang to explore new ways to help the body fight tuberculosis based on his recent findings.
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a contagious bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs, but can spread to other parts of the body. The Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is the only approved vaccine available for tuberculosis and has been used since 1921. Although protective for children, its effectiveness when given to adults remains uncertain, and it is not commonly used in the U.S.
Huang, who has been studying tuberculosis since 2014, is focusing his research on a type of lung immune cell that he found allows TB-causing bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), to quickly multiply. The immune cells, known as alveolar macrophages, offer a hospitable environment for growth of Mtb soon after it gets into the lungs via airborne transmission.
Huang secured the NIH grant after discovering how macrophages respond differently to TB infection depending on their origin and the potential for reprogramming their metabolic pathways.
“We’re thinking we can harness these cells to make them more restrictive or controlling of the growth of Mtb,” he said in the release. “If we can identify certain metabolic pathways and if we inhibit or boost these pathways, we can have more effective immune responses to TB.”
The research includes a collaboration with UAMS clinician and researcher Dr. Josh Kennedy at the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute. Kennedy’s expertise includes allergic and immunologic diseases. He is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Allergy/Immunology and Department of Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and he sees patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Mtb had been responsible for more human deaths than any other pathogen until the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Health Organization.
Although TB is preventable and curable with a long course of antibiotics, 1.3 million people died from TB in 2022.
The U.S. has one of the lowest TB rates globally and has a goal of eliminating TB by 2035.
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