TANDEM Kick-Off Meeting at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

April 15, 2013

The TANDEM project was officially launched in London, UK, on 10 and 11 April 2013 with a meeting at the coordinating institution, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Consortium members came together for the first time to kick-off the project and lay the ground for a successful cooperation in the coming years, combining their complementary expertise and broad experience.

Together, the TANDEM consortium wants to tackle some of the important questions about TB and diabetes. How can we best diagnose diabetes in TB patients and TB in diabetes patients? How much would it cost to implement such bi-directional screening? Would more intensive monitoring of diabetic TB patients improve their glycaemic control? Why do many TB patients with diabetes not respond as well to TB drug treatment? Are there genes that modify the interaction between tuberculosis and type 2 diabetes? And what are the molecular mechanisms than underlie this second "unholy alliance"?

TANDEM project partners are excited to start working together to address these important issues and to establish a fruitful cooperation over the months and years to come. Researchers hope that their results will contribute to the urgently needed evidence base needed to contribute to better control of patients with both tuberculosis and diabetes, as well as providing mechanistic insights into how the body deals with M.tuberculosis infection.