One-day Tuberculosis research seminar held at KI

On 3rd October 2018, the Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Tuberculosis (TB) Research organized a seminar at the Nobel Forum, attended by approximately 100 TB researchers, policy makers, PhD students and others from Sweden and Europe.

The aim was to exchange new knowledge in the field of TB research (“from cell to society”) and increase interdisciplinary collaboration, in response to a new political declaration resulting from the first-ever UN high-level meeting on TB, held UN General Assembly September 26 2018.

The seminar started with an update from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the outcomes of the UN high-level meeting on TB, which included a strong call for accelerated TB research as well as a multi-sectoral response building on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework. This was followed by presentations and discussions covering topics on immunology, drug development, clinical research, and public health research. Guest presenters were from WHO, Swedish universities, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands. The day ended with a panel discussion with experts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), WHO, Folkhälsomyndigheten (the Public Health Agency of Sweden), Uppsala Universitet and the Karolinska Institutet.

The Centre for TB Research at Karolinska Institutet is a newly established research centre, with the aim of improving research collaboration both in Sweden and internationally. The Centre plans future research seminars with the aim of sharing the outcomes of cutting-edge research designed to end TB as a public health problem, a major goal of the End TB Strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals.