Summary of Guest Lecture: New Understanding In The Biology Of Tuberculosis Disease Progression

Monday, 10^th October 2016

Auditorium, Faculty of Biology UGM

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Herman Spaink 

The guest lecture was held by Faculty of Biology UGM and Faculty of Pharmacy UGM in corporate with  Institute of Biology Leiden, Faculty of Science Leiden University. This event was participated by the students and lecturers of UGM. In this opportunity, Prof. Dr. Herman Spaink delivered a presentation which has been his research supported by many institutions and companies, e.g. GSK, LUMC, IBL, ZF Screens, Union Biopharmaeutical, Life Science Methods, etc.
Some  points that was delivered by the guest lecturer are:

1.  Zebrafish larvae is more effective than the other animal models (e.g. rat, mice, and Drosophila) because it closely related to human (genetically have more same immunity responses than others).. It has many similarities to human morphological, molecular, genetic, ad pathological features. The human pathogen also can propagate in this vertebrate model. It also has small and transparent body, So it can be observed easily by using fluorescent protein. Zebrafish has number of chromosomes which is more than Drosophilla but fewer and simpler than mammals, So it can be representative animal model to human without increasing the research difficulty. There are also availability of a large set of genetic tools for Zebrafish. It is also no need to worry about the animal ethic.

2.  There have been many colorful fluorescent proteins developed. There are very high varieties of those colors like several kind of red, yellow, green, even in pink. These colors are obtained from many kind of fruits protein. However , those can be used as different marker to observe the immune responses in Zebrafish. Researcher may be use more than one color of fluorescents in one time research of one Zebrafish.

3.  Tuberculosis is more dangerous than other kind of deadly disease like cancer. The bacteria can be spread out easily and killing people slowly by only small kind of symptom. One-third of the world population is infected with M. tuberculosis and multi-drug resistant strains are rapidlyevolving

4.  There are many kind of tuberculosis disease that we didn’t know before inside of in lung, e.g. tuberculosis in hand, tuberculosis in eye, etc. Most of people even do not know that they’re affected.

5.  Using antibiotics isn’t always effective against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis because it can make the bacteria more resistance than before when the suspected people didn’t use it correctly. If the bacteria become more resistence, it is more difficult in its healing and increase the spreading of the bacteria into others.

6.  Diabetes increase the possibility to be affected of tuberculosis. It is related to glucose deployment in the body while every small part our body need glucose. When someone with diabetes is affected by M. tuberculosis, insulin can’t be used as supporting drug for the affected one again.

7.  A compound called granuloma is a kind of specific compound mostly used and observed in Mr. Herman’s research in understanding the biology of tuberculosis disease progression.

8.  Immune responses of Zebrafish to M. tuberculosis infection is also influenced by external factors like environmental condition, e.g. tempeteratur, humidity and other. However it is important to make another research to ensure the influences of the environmental conditions to tuberculosis spreading and tuberculosis progression in human.

9.  It is important to develop many researches about the tuberculosis progression and the development of medicinal products against the tuberculosis diseases by making advance the method using Zebrafish and fluorescent.