Myriad RBM, a wholly owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. has announced that it will assist the Institut Pasteur in a public-private research collaboration to fight the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic. This research project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through a grant to the Institut Pasteur.
The proof-of-concept study will evaluate patients with latent and active TB infections who are affiliated with the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) clinical study sites. The goals of this study are to field-test Myriad RBM's TruCulture system as a point-of-care blood collection and immune response monitoring method and to stratify patients with active and latent tuberculosis.
"Tuberculosis is a challenging disease. We need better technology to diagnose patients and assess individual immune response to treatment," said Matthew Albert, co-coordinator of Milieu Interieur and director of the Immunology Department at Institut Pasteur. "Prior studies support the use of the TruCulture system in settings with limited resources, and may help us improve the diagnosis of TB and accelerate the development of new drugs and vaccines to treat the disease."
Myriad RBM will supply the study with its revolutionary TruCulture collection systems. Once the blood samples are collected, Myriad RBM and the Institut Pasteur will seek to discover protein biomarkers important in regulating the immune system response using Myriad RBM's proprietary MAP (Multi-Analyte Profiling) platform.
"We are excited to collaborate with the Institut Pasteur on this important Gates Foundation-funded research program. We believe that TruCulture can help to stratify TB patients with latent versus active disease. This will lead to the optimization of treatments and provide better support for vaccine clinical trials," said Ralph McDade, president of Myriad RBM. "If we are successful, TruCulture may prove to be useful in a multitude of field-based, point-of-care applications, leading to improved patient care."