Following completion of a massive
epitope discovery effort (also supported by an HHS contract), current work on MTB includes development of tools to isolate MTB - specific T cells (supported by the Gates Foundation) and identifying T cell signatures that distinguish three possible infection states: cleared infection, stable latent infection, and latent infection with high risk of progression to disease (in conjunction with a large consortium led by Henry Blumberg at Emory University).
These
efforts have resulted in the
discovery of previously unknown human T cell
epitopes that may be key in the initiation of allergic responses, and to the development of biochemical and bioinformatic tools that have been used to map the human T cell response to a large panel of common allergens.