Tientcheu Leopold D

I am an Assistant Professor based at the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM. My research has focused on tuberculosis (TB) for the past 10 years starting with my Master’s thesis project in 2007 at the University of Yaounde 1. Using molecular methods, I set out to find genetic mutations that confer drug resistance to Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) and showed that radio-isotope assays to evaluate the spread of drug-resistant MTBC were as reliable and efficient as the standard, time-consuming drug susceptibility testing cultures. My subsequent doctoral studies were completed in 2013 at the LSHTM on a competitive MRC-fellowship award and were focused on studying differences between the immune responses of M. africanum and M. tuberculosis-infected patients in The Gambia following treatment My current research interest is to investigate if the differences in host responses to MTBC strains I previously described in The Gambia and published using flow cytometry, Luminex and microarray technologies also exist in different African regions particularly South Africa. These findings have implications for TB vaccines, immunodiagnostic of TB and the use of immunomodulatory molecules to shorten the treatment of TB so-called host-directed therapeutics (HDTs).