News within Clinical Medicine
Dr James Phelan recipient of Science Foundation Ireland's Technology Innovation Development Award
Dr James Phelan, TB Laboratory Research Scientist, is a recipient of Science Foundation Ireland's Technology Innovation Development Award to research 'Evaluating the immunometabolic potential of desferrioxamine to augment antibiotic treatment against Mycobacterium tuberculosis' .
Immune cells change the way that they break down sugars by regulating their metabolism after they are infected with bacteria. This change in metabolism is essential for the production of specific protective proteins, called cytokines, that fight the infection. We will study drug combinations, which are licensed for use in humans at the moment, to enhance the metabolism in cells from the human lung infected with resistant strains of tuberculosis bacteria. We will investigate if we can improve current antibiotics used to treat tuberculosis by enhancing metabolism at the same time and identify ways in which these drug combinations can affect the behavior of immune cells.