UCT leads African infectious disease research programme - TimesLIVE

--> The University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa is leading the four-year, pan-African openScopes AIDDiA research programme, worth about 95 million rand. It is intended to provide scientists with advanced microscopy technologies to study tuberculosis, malaria, Buruli ulcer and other infectious diseases, TimesLIVE reports .

The openScopes Advancing Infectious Disease Discovery Research in Africa programme is funded by the Wellcome Trust. It will combine advanced microscopy, machine learning and specialised training to strengthen infectious disease research on the continent.

One of the programme's first main tasks will be to study drug-resistant tuberculosis directly in patient samples in South Africa and Kenya. Researchers plan to analyse mycobacteria at the level of individual cells and in body tissues to determine how the pathogen responds to treatment and immune pressure.