Unmasking the Deadly Pathogen: The Quest to Conquer Tuberculosis

Andrew Olive has always been interested in how pathogens cause disease. Born in Kuwait, he watched his father work for the World Health Organization in the Middle East. Now, his lab is studying the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is becoming highly resistant to antibiotics and has no effective vaccine for adults.
Endemic in areas lacking strong public health infrastructure, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is responsible for more than 10 million new infections and over 1.5 million deaths each year.
“The BSL-3 facility is required to study how M. tuberculosis evades the immune response and causes disease” Olive said. “This research enables us to make new discoveries that can be used to develop effective vaccines and new therapies.”
Because of their research importance and increasing numbers of faculty members in need of these facilities, feasibility studies are being conducted to explore ways to expand and centralize BSL-3 facilities at MSU.
“These infectious diseases are not going away, so thinking about investments in the BSL-3 infrastructure is important,” Olive said. “MSU is looking to position itself in a strategic way to ensure that we can keep doing this critically important research."
Andrew Olive is an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University.
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