K-RITH is interested in studying all aspects of TB, HIV and HIV/TB co-infection, from the identification of desperately needed diagnostics and biomarkers (which can speed up clinical trials of drugs and vaccines for TB and HIV), to the potential of microfluidics, to sequencing the genomes of multidrug-resistant TB, characterising the human immune response to TB and HIV and improving the clinical management of TB/HIV co-infected patients.  Meet the current K-RITH Investigators.

Research at K-RITH is focused on the basic science of TB and HIV biology and pathology, as well as the host response to these infections.  Our core research areas include microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, high-throughput biology, and clinical studies.  We want to share these resources with the broader community, in South Africa, the African continent, and beyond.

The K-RITH Clinical Research Core serves the K-RITH investigators and collaborators by enabling them access to clinical specimens. This entails taking concepts through study design to protocol development and regulatory approval, to implementation and analysis.

“We will be concentrating on basic science,” says K-RITH Director, Dr. Bill Bishai. “The laboratory bench is our starting point, but our ‘raison d’être’ is to study human biology.  Understanding human disease will be the platform from which we can develop improved diagnostic, treatment and prevention tools to fight these global killers.”

Our founding scientists and members of our Scientific Advisory Board have a wide range of expertise that will also help guide our research, ranging from multidrug-resistant TB to the immune response to HIV and TB to clinical management of TB/HIV co-infected patients.