Paul Ogongo Interview for Center for Tuberculosis

Paul Ogongo, shared, when asked did anything surprise you while conducting your research, that we have taken a unique approach of monitoring T-cell responses to individual distinct Mtb antigens as opposed to Mtb antigen pools. What we have found exciting, yet unexpected, is our observation that a set of less studied antigens elicit a robust interleukin-17 (IL-17) responses while the more commonly studied antigens do not. This observation is important for two reasons; (i) it provides additional evidence of the existence of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) independent T-cell immunity in Mtb exposed individuals, and (ii) it demonstrates that distinct Mtb antigens elicit different T-cell responses, and we hypothesize that the differences in responses determine the outcome of Mtb infection. We are currently conducting experiments to test this hypothesis.

Read the full interview at: https://tb.ucsf.edu/paul-ogongo