Scientists at Trinity College Dublin and St James’s Hospital, Dublin, have discovered how vitamin A drives the lung immune system to deal with tuberculosis (TB). The findings have just been published in a top respiratory journal, the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

Scientists have unlocked a key element in understanding how human lungs fight tuberculosis (TB). They hope their research findings, which were published in the international peer reviewed journal Immunity, will help pave the way towards new treatment approaches for TB, particularly in an era of increasing antibiotic resistance to TB.

Tuberculosis (TB) used to kill one in seven people around the world before the advent of antibiotics. However the increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistant TB means that doctors are running out of options in trying to combat this bacterium.