Renowned TB-researcher Prof. dr. Christoph Lange to deliver Spinoza Lecture

Renowned TB-researcher to deliver Spinoza Lecture

Prof. dr. Christoph Lange will deliver the Spinoza lecture on Tuesday 14 March. The title of the lecture is “The return of the white plague: emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Europe”.

Controlling the tuberculosis epidemic is severely hampered by the rise in resistance against a large number of anti-tuberculosis drugs.  Especially in the Central and East-European countries, the prevalence of drug resistant is rampant, with a rapid decline in appropriate treatment options.

Prof. Lange will discuss how this situation developed, how it influences TB-control in all countries in Europe, even those with currently a low prevalence of drug-resistance, and what consorted actions need to be taken to avoid tuberculosis to become untreatable.

Prof. Lange is Professor of International Health/Infectious Diseases at the University of Lübeck, with additional appointments at the Karoliska Institute in Sweden, and the Universities of Namibia, and the Republic of Moldova. He is the Head of Clinical Infectious Diseases Research Center Borstel (FZB), and leads the Clinical Tuberculosis Center of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).

The research activities of Prof. Lange focus on precision medicine against drug-resistant tuberculosis. He has a special interest in biomarkers as early indicators for therapy failure, and relapse-free cure. Together with his colleagues, he evaluates the role of comprehensive genotypic drug-resistance testing on the design of anti-tuberculosis drug regimens, and of therapeutic drug monitoring to optimize treatment outcomes in drug-resistant tuberculosis. Prof. Lange is one of the founders of TBnet, a European research consortium for clinical, translational, and public health research in the field of tuberculosis.