Carole Mitnick
Harvard University, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Curing tuberculosis (TB) does not always end the harm. Many people who finish treatment are left with lasting lung damage, known as post-tuberculosis lung disease (PTLD).
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
tuberculosis
chronic lung disease
bronchiectasis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2030
What they work on
- Measure how common post-TB lung disease and its subtypes are among 1,000 treated TB patients in Lima versus 291 community controls, using spirometry, imaging and echocardiography.
- Estimate the risk linked to factors recorded at TB diagnosis and build a predictive model to identify TB patients at high risk of later lung disease who could be offered interventions.
- Assess how human genetic variation and Mycobacterium tuberculosis genetic variation contribute to the development of post-TB lung disease in the Lima cohort.
- Evaluate how accurately functional assays, questionnaires and biomarkers screen for post-TB lung disease compared with detailed lung and heart testing.
More about the research
This damage includes blocked or stiffened airways, widened and scarred airways (bronchiectasis), high blood pressure in the lungs, and fungal infections such as aspergillosis. PTLD accounts for an estimated 47% of the healthy years of life lost to TB worldwide. Yet researchers do not know how common its different forms are, who is at risk, or how best to screen for it.
Why it matters
About 11 million people develop TB each year, and an estimated 1 million TB survivors live in the US. Knowing how often lung damage follows TB, who is most at risk and which simple tests detect it could help clinicians in Peru and the US identify survivors who need follow-up care. It could also guide the design of interventions to protect their long-term lung health.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Russell Kempker
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the metabolic and lipid profiles of each region of human necrotic lung granulomas, using MALDI-2 mass spectrometry imaging and laser capture microdissection on surgically removed TB lung tissue.
Jeffrey Collins
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine which plasma immunometabolic signatures, combining metabolites, oxylipins and cytokines, most accurately identify pulmonary TB among adults referred for TB evaluation, compared with symptomatic patients in whom TB is excluded.
Jeffrey Tornheim
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how many MDR-TB patients in Mumbai carry resistance mutations that would rule out moxifloxacin, linezolid, bedaquiline, clofazimine or cycloserine, using next-generation sequencing directly from uncultured sputum.
The school
Harvard University: 42 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 712 research doctorates a year.
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