EvolTB

To date, tuberculosis is one of top ten causes of death in the world. Recent approaches to stop the spread of this disease often fail because of the lack of knowledge about the evolutionary past of its causing agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Skeletal changes in ancient human remains prove that tuberculosis has been a scourge of mankind for several thousand years. Yet, investigations on a molecular level remain difficult due to poor conservation and high environmental contamination of samples.

In this project, we aim to reconstruct ancient Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) genomes by using an interdisciplinary approach. First, we aim to optimize an enrichment technique that targets MTBC specific DNA. Next, we will produce high resolution ancient genomic data by next-generation sequencing and apply computational biological tools to understand the onset and development of this pathogen.