EPFL becomes world center for tuberculosis study

Tuberculosis still affects thousands of victims worldwide. And with the inauguration of a laboratory specializing in air-borne pathogens Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has become one of the world centers for research in the domain one week before the World Tuberculosis Day, organized by the WHO. With this new laboratory, EPFL disposes an indispensable research tool in the fight against tuberculosis. Financed by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Swiss Government, the lab is open to researchers from EPFL and nearby universities in order to study in vivo strains of Bacillus anthracis , the air-borne pathogen causing tuberculosis. The teams led by EPFL professors Stewart Cole and John McKinney will be testing their new therapies in the laboratory that will be inaugurated on the 17th of March. The laboratory opening precedes the World Tuberculosis Day organized by the World Health Organization on the 24th of March. The disease is far from being a thing of the past - it remains a public danger not only for developing nations but for industrialized ones as well.