A study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers has found that certain antibodies inhibit Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the cause of tuberculosis (TB), the infectious disease that claims the most lives worldwide. Published in Cell Reports, the study identified characteristics of these antibodies and revealed insights that may lead to clinical tools that help prevent TB and other diseases.

“This data changes how we think about using the immune system against tuberculosis by showing how some antibodies activate immune cells in patients to block Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb),” said the study’s senior author, Lenette Lu, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Immunology and a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at UT Southwestern.

Despite widespread use of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), the only licensed TB vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 10.8 million people became ill with TB in 2023 and 1.25 million died.