Baylor College of Medicine Global Tuberculosis Program

The Global Tuberculosis Program began in 2011 with the recruitment of world-renowned pediatric TB expert Dr. Anna Mandalakas to Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas. The program's mission is well aligned with the World Health Organization Sustainable Development Goals and uses research, education, and advocacy to prevent, diagnose, and treat tuberculosis in children. The long-term goal of our program is the establishment of a network of Tuberculosis Centers of Excellence built upon Texas Children’s existing clinical infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our Global TB Program team works in four interrelated areas: disease prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and immunology. These program domains are built upon a data collection core and complemented by rigorous epidemiological and operational research. The Global TB Program leverages partnerships with other members of the Baylor College of Medicine family and collaborators at other institutions to develop effective, sustainable, standardized methods of diagnosing tuberculosis in children and identifying biomarkers correlating with the progression from tuberculosis infection to disease, as well as standardizing screening processes to characterize epidemiological risk factors for tuberculosis better. The Global TB Program has also worked with the World Health Organization to perform an expert review of the diagnostic tool, GeneXpert to inform policy making on childhood TB diagnosis.