UNITE4TB 2022 highlights

TB education via UNITE4TB webinars  

During the course of 2022, a series of four webinars aimed at increasing awareness of the UNITE4TB project and its results among TB healthcare professionals was organized. 

The first webinar, held in February, was a panel discussion on the global burden of TB and featured a presentation by Professor Mario Raviglione of the University of Milan (UMIL), who is leading UNITE4TB’s stakeholder engagement efforts. In May, the second webinar took place and involved an expert interview with microbiologists on TB diagnostics with a comprehensive presentation by Dr. Daniela Cirillo of the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, leader of the Consortium's microbiology work package. The third webinar addressed the progress made to date in shortening TB treatment. The keynote speaker for this session, held in July, was Dr. Patrick Phillips, UNITE4TB Consortium member from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Center for Tuberculosis. The fourth and final webinar of the year took place in October and focused on the pros and cons of rolling out new drugs and treatment regimens for TB without diagnostic capacity. Dr. Cirillo was once again a keynote speaker, joined by Dr. Richard Menzies (Director of the McGill World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in TB Research at McGill University in Montreal, Canada).  

The UNITE4TB webinar series, organized by consortium partners, Instituto de Saude Publica da Universidade do Porto (ISPUP) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS), will continue in 2023. Stay tuned for announcements.  

AMR Accelerator TB-focused webinars 

Members of UNITE4TB also took part in a couple of TB-focused webinars organized by the AMR Accelerator, of which UNITE4TB is a partner. The first, held in March, featured Professor Michael Hoelscher, Scientific Lead of UNITE4TB and Director of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the LMU University Hospital. 

Community engagement 

In February, the UNITE4TB Community Advisory Group (CAG) held its inaugural meeting. A core body within UNITE4TB, the CAG includes representatives from across the globe with a vast amount of experience in representing the community perspective in research and development projects.  

Since this first meeting, the group has been very active, rounding off a busy year with a dedicated session during the Union World Conference on Lung Health, in which the importance of community engagement in TB research was addressed and the UNITE4TB CAG achievements to date were shared.   

The CAG has also been championing the importance of language in TB communications.  

Connecting with the broader TB community 

In March, on the occasion of World TB Day, the UNITE4TB LinkedIn and Twitter channels were launched. There has been a steady growth in followers over the last months and in September, we increased our social media engagement with the launch of our dedicated YouTube channel. We look forward to continuing to engage with the broader TB community via these platforms in 2023.  

2022 Annual Meeting 

In May, members of the UNITE4TB Consortium gathered in Munich for the 2022 Annual Meeting. Hosted by the Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine of the LMU University Hospital in the Munich Residence, this was the first full-Consortium face-to-face meeting since the launch of the project in July 2021. The two-day meeting was preceded by a TB symposium that brought together leading international TB scientists and political stakeholders who presented their current expertise and discussed competing strategies.  

Stakeholder engagement 

A key objective of UNITE4TB is to work with relevant stakeholders in TB drug development to explore and implement synergies and collaborations. Our Consortium partner UMI is working to ensure adequate early engagement of policymakers, financial authorities, and agencies to enable the effective delivery and dissemination of the project goals and results. 

During the course of 2022, good progress has been made through mapping, interviewing, and analyzing relevant stakeholders in the TB field.  

Project dissemination 

Even though UNITE4TB is still in an early phase, a few publications related to the work of the Consortium have already been published in scientific journals. These include an editorial authored by partners of the Consortium and published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, a review of new interests and strategies in TB treatment monitoring and outcome measures, and a publication on the value of Pharmacometrics and Machine Learning for drug development. 

Conclusion 

In summary, as outlined by our project leads, several crucial decisions have been made so far and we are on track to reach our set goals. While there is still a long way to go, the project is advancing at a fast pace and has already reached several important deliverables. The focus now lies on preparing for the clinical trials, which are set to start in 2023. An exciting year ahead awaits!