Editorial team

Dr García-Basteiro is an Associate Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and a preventive medicine specialist at the Hospital Clínic Barcelona. He coordinates the Tuberculosis (TB) research group at the Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça (CISM).

He is a passionate researcher in global health, currently leading research focused on the study of TB in high HIV burden settings, including field and genomic epidemiology, molecular stool-based diagnostics, and biomarker-based approaches to detect early TB phases and predict their progression to disease. He has had a leading role in numerous research projects in the field, mostly in clinical epidemiology, clinical trials and novel diagnostics. His interests include the study of the burden of TB disease in different vulnerable populations and the characterization of TB at the clinical, microbiological, and social level.

Dr. Marcel Behr is a clinician-scientist, Professor of Medicine, Director of the McGill Infectious Diseases Division and Director of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (McGill-i4).

Dr. Behr trained at the University of Toronto, Queen’s, McGill, and Stanford. Dr. Behr’s lab uses bacterial genomic methodologies to study the epidemiology and pathogenesis of tuberculosis (TB) and other mycobacterial diseases. Dr. Behr’s work has been recognized by election into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American Academy of Microbiology.

Joanna Ehrlich is a global health professional with over a decade of experience, working in more than 20 countries for governmental and non-governmental organizations. She holds an MSc in Global Health from the Univeristy of Barcelona and ISGlobal, where she began focusing her research efforts on tuberculosis in 2019. Joanna has worked as an epidemiologist in TB and COVID-19, and joined the Tuberculosis Research Group at ISGlobal as a Project Manager in 2022.

Joanna has a passion for global health, which has been cultivated through her work across the globe in infectious disease epidemiology and increasing access to medical care. She was recognized with the “Award of Excellence” from the commissioner of health in Texas for her outstanding contributions to the COVID-19 pandemic response, and was presented with the “ChangeMaker Award” for her work with a rural NGO in Bukoba, Tanzania. Her particular research interests include the study of TB in high-risk populations including children and PLHIV, the natural history of TB, and epidemiological approaches to TB control in rural, high TB burden settings.

Maryline Bonnet is a pulmonologist and epidemiologist. She is research director at the TransVIHMI research unit at IRD/Université de Montpellier/Inserm in Montpellier, France.

She has more than 20 years’ experience of research on tuberculosis and HIV-tuberculosis coinfection in sub-Saharan African countries. Her research focus is on tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis.

Dr. Marianne Calnan, a global health professional with 20+ years of experience, has worked impactfully with HIV and TB programs and health systems in LMIC, including Botswana, Uganda, Eswatini, and the Philippines. Armed with a medical degree, public health training, and a specialization in implementation science, she advocates for a paradigm shift in health systems strengthening by emphasizing systems thinking, innovation, and partnerships to navigate the complexities of health systems. Dr Calnan’s passion lies in promoting health equity using dynamic, interconnected, contextual strategies and ensuring access to quality care. She is a proponent of patient-centered care delivery to improve individual well-being and health outcomes.

Steve Graham is a paediatrician and Professor of International Child Health with the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also a senior technical advisor with The Union on child and adolescent tuberculosis and lung health and with The Burnet Institute. Steve has many years of clinical, research and teaching experience in child and adolescent health in the African and Asia-Pacific regions.

He is a founding core member in 2003 and past Chair of the WHO Stop TB Partnership’s Child and Adolescent TB Working Group. He has a particular interest in implementing and evaluating integrated strategies to detect, treat and prevent tuberculosis, including drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Sabine Hermans is a senior researcher at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development and the Department of Global Health, Amsterdam University Medical Center. She also works as a clinician at the Center for Tropical and Travel Medicine at the Department of Infectious Diseases, AUMC. Sabine is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist by training and has more than 10 years of experience living and working in various sub-Saharan African countries.

Her research interests include tuberculosis (TB) and HIV (co-)infection, in particular recurrent tuberculosis, and optimal strategies of HIV and TB health care delivery in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to ongoing work on recurrent TB in South Africa, current projects include prospective studies on TB screening, TB diagnostics and novel drug-resistant TB treatment regimens in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Anna is a Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine where she serves as Chief of the Division on Global and Immigrant Health, teaches within the National School of Tropical Medicine, and directs the Global Tuberculosis Program of Texas Children’s Hospital. She serves as adjunct Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston’s School of Public Health in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Science. She holds a prestigious Leibniz Chair at the Research Center Borstel, Sülfeld, Germany where she is also a member of the Clinical Infectious Disease Group of the German Center for Infectious Research (DZIF) Clinical TB Unit.

For nearly three decades, her translational research has focused on identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, TB diagnostics, and prevention of TB disease with a special focus on children and adolescence living with HIV. In recognition of her inspirational and pioneering spirit, she was awarded the Clara Southmayd Ludlow Medal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2022. Since joining Baylor College of Medicine in 2012, Anna has collaborated with colleagues to develop research capacity and enhance the care and treatment of TB and TB/HIV affected children, adolescents and families living in over a dozen countries home to Baylor College of Medicine initiatives.

Dr. Martinez uses epidemiological and quantitative approaches to study early-life risk factors for pediatric tuberculosis in high-burden settings, tuberculosis transmission dynamics in high-risk populations (e.g., prisoners, persons living with HIV or diabetes), and the relationship between tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases.

Dr. Martinez’s lab is currently working with colleagues and collaborators in several countries globally. We believe that collaboration across professional disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives is the key to solving intractable health issues and the lab welcomes discussions with others working on these same health issues.

Prof. Giovanni Battista Migliori specialist in Respiratory Medicine and Medical Statistics, has >30 years of global experience in technical assistance, research and training (50% of the global human TB workforces were trained by his ‘Sondalo course’, which was conducted so far in >100 editions in English, French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese). Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for TB and Lung Diseases at Maugeri Research Institute, Tradate, Italy, he is Honorary Professor at the Queen Mary University (London) and Visiting Professor at the University of Monterrey (Mexico) and Insubria (Italy).

He has published >700 peer-review papers in different languages (H-Index >90), having authored the core guidelines by WHO and ERS/ATS/IDSA/CDC on different areas of tuberculosis and pioneered the TB Elimination movement. He is presently supporting countries in different continents to implement their TB National Strategic Plans and to develop Global Fund Proposals.

Former Secretary General of the ERS and President of the UNION (European Region), he is currently Chief Editor of the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and Section Editor for TB of the European Respiratory Journal and chair of the GTN (Global Tuberculosis Network).

Dr Catherine W.M. ONG MBBS MRCP(UK) MMed (Int Med) PhD FAMS FRCP is Assistant Professor with the Department of Medicine at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine NUS, Senior Consultant with the Division of Infectious Diseases in the National University Hospital and Visiting Consultant at the Singapore Tuberculosis Control Unit with both research and clinical interests in Tuberculosis. She serves in international journal editorial boards; as Associate Editor of the leading European Respiratory Journal, and Deputy Editor of the flagship International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases. Her other portfolios include: Secretary to the ESCMID Study Group for Mycobacterial Infections (ESGMYC) and expert reviewer to international funders such as the Wellcome Trust, UK MRC and ESCMID.

Catherine graduated in medicine from NUS in 2003 and during Infectious Diseases specialist training completed a full-time PhD in 2013 at Imperial College London funded by the National Medical Research Council (NMRC). Her laboratory focuses on Tuberculosis host-pathogen interactions, biomarker discovery including rapid tests and TB host-directed therapies in multi-national clinical trials. Her research team of outstanding graduate students and research staff have won multiple national and international-level awards; notably from ECCMID, APCCMI and the Wellcome Trust. For her work, she received multiple national and international accolades, notably the Presidential Award prize at the American Society for Leukocyte Biology 2011, Keystone Symposia Global Health Travel Award by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2012, International Investigator Award by the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2013, NMRC Transition Award 2015, Institut Merieux-SIDS Young Investigator Award 2018 and NMRC Clinician Scientist Award 2018 with successful renewal in 2022.

Larissa Otero obtained her medical degree from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, a master in public health from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and a PhD in Health Sciences at University of Ghent, Belgium.

She is an associate professor at the School of Medicine at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, a Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and independent consultant on tuberculosis surveillance.

Molebogeng (Lele) Rangaka is a Professor and clinician scientist with over 20 years experience of research in infectious disease epidemiology and public health. Her research areas span the epidemiology of poverty-related diseases, randomized assessments of public health interventions, digital health innovation and implementation science.

Her team conducts large epidemiological studies on TB screening, diagnostics and clinical trials of TB prevention across multi-morbidities, people at risk, and world regions. Lele is the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on TB Research and Innovation and the lead for the WHO global TB-IPD platform for TB treatment and outcomes at UCL.

Mario C.B. Raviglione has been Full Professor of Global Health at the University of Milan, Italy, since 2018 and co-director of the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Health Science (MACH). Between 1991 and 2017, he worked at WHO in Geneva where he was Director of the Global Tuberculosis (TB) Programme (2003-2017) and responsible for global policies and standards on TB care, control and research. As a WHO official he worked with more than 50 countries worldwide. He graduated from Turin University, and trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases and AIDS at Cabrini Medical Centre, New York, and Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

He has authored >350 publications on TB, AIDS, infectious diseases, COVID-19 and global health, and additional book chapters, guidelines and policy documents. He edited and published three books on TB (Informa Healthcare, NY, USA, 2006 and 2010; Springer, 2021) and recently “Global Health Essentials (Springer, 2023). His h-index and citations are, respectively, 117 and >63,000. He received several international awards for his work in global health and tuberculosis.

Dr. Barbara Seaworth received her medical (M.D.) degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Wilford Hall United States Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas and her fellowship in Infectious Disease at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Seaworth is a Professor of Medicine and Infectious Disease at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Tyler.

Dr. Seaworth has spent the last 38 years working with tuberculosis as the Co-Medical Director of the Heartland National TB Center. She is an expert consultant for the state of Texas and for the United States (U.S.)/Mexico Binational Project along the Texas and Mexico border and a clinician for the San Antonio Metro TB Clinic. She is a consultant for the Global TB Concilium and the senior author of the 2019 American Thoracic Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), European Respiratory Society and Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) guideline: Drug Resistant TB. She is a Co-Chair for the Community Research Advisory Group for the CDC’s Tuberculosis Trials Consortium.

She is a fellow of the IDSA, a member of the U.S. National TB Coalition of America and prior President of the National Society of TB Clinicians. She served as a member of the U.S.’ Advisory Council on the Elimination of TB and IDSA’s Global Public Health Committee. She has authored multiple book chapters and publications and has frequently presented on all aspects of tuberculosis internationally and throughout the United States.

Dr. Ssengooba is a Ugandan Mycobacteriologist with advanced skills in molecular biology and bioinformatics. He also holds a Master of Health Services Research, a Diploma for Clinical Research Associates and Monitors, and an Erasmus Mundus Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is the Head of Research, Clinical, and Laboratory Services, at Makerere University Biomedical Research Center (MAKBRC), and the Scientific Director– of the Mycobacteriology (BSL-3) Laboratory at Makerere University School of Biomedical Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.

His laboratories have participated in several diagnostic evaluation studies with four of them making it to the World Health Organization endorsement i.e. Urinary LAM, TB LAMP, GeneXpert Ultra MTB/XDR, and Molbio Truenat MTB/RIF and BDMax TB diagnostic, among others still under WHO endorsement consideration. Also participated in several network studies including FEND, TBTC, ACTG, IMPAACT network clinical trials, SHINE trial, STREAM2 trial, the TB Alliance NC-005, NC-006, and NC-008/SIMPLICTB trials, the TMC-207, among other on-going clinical and diagnostic trials.

Grant is a Professor of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Arica. He founded and leads the CLIME group of 50 people dedicated to pursuing practical and translatable solutions to end tuberculosis via Africa-centred excellence in training.

CLIME’s research spans diagnostics, transmission, and the microbiome and has directly and indirectly influenced several World Health Organization and national policy decisions; leading to improvements in the standard-of-care for people suffering from TB.

Anete Trajman is a Full Professor of Internal Medicine at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is also an adjunct visiting professor at McGill University. She coordinates the clinical research department of the Brazilian TB Research Network (Rede-TB).

She is a member of the advisory board of the Brazilian NTP. Her research focuses on innovation and operational research in tuberculosis infection and tuberculosis preventive treatment.

Adriana Jarrett is a TB survivor and advocate, with a background in human development and social services. In 2020, while Adriana was attending university, she was diagnosed with Bovine TB, and faced multiple hospitalizations throughout her 9 months of treatment. She now shares her experience with others in hopes of building more awareness of TB, specifically on the family and community impact.

Adriana has spoken at the Michigan World TB Day Conference 2023 and 2024, the 2023 US National TB Conference, the 5th Annual MI4 Scientific Symposium, and a Michigan Herd and Hunter community meeting. Adriana is also part of We Are TB, an organization that advocates to end TB and provides support groups in Spanish and English to TB survivors, patients, and family members.

Rhoda Lewa is a TB survivor and advocate from Nairobi, Kenya, with over 20 years experience working in global public health, focused on HIV and TB in Africa with strong competencies in working with civil society and communities, and on communities, rights, and gender (CRG), and community systems strengthening (CSS). She has contributed to many efforts to eliminate stigma and improve patient-focused language in TB, including the Stop TB Partnership’s Words Matter Language Guide.  Rhoda has also contributed to numerous scientific publications aimed at transforming the language used in TB.