The purpose of this contract is to provide to tuberculosis researchers materials of consistently high quality prepared from M. tuberculosis and to provide a facility to evaluate candidate anti-tuberculosis vaccines in animal models. Mycobacteria are difficult organisms to grow requiring 3-4 weeks to produce a colony on solid culture medium. Because it is transmitted via aerosols, work with the organism will be done in BL3 laboratories. This research materials provided will include irradiated organisms, purified protein, lipid and carbohydrate antigens, culture filtrates, and nucleic acids. The animal models available for consideration include, but are not limited to, the mouse, guinea pig and rabbit. This service will enable and facilitate the participation of researchers (many of whom are without the required BLT facilities needed to culture quantities of M. tuberculosis or evaluate candidate vaccines and drugs under direct challenge conditions) in basic and clinical research projects that require these resources. It also allows the efficient use of facilities and materials as quantities of different materials may be purified from the same source material and standards for comparative evaluation of treatment or prophylactic efficacies developed. Access to research materials, such as purified antigens, prepared under defined protocols, allows greater interchange of information among interested researchers and objective comparison of data from different laboratories using the same materials.
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