Tuberculosis may lurk in bone marrow stem cells of infected patients
Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 15:31
in Health & Medicine
Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide each year. Now, in a classic case of bench-to-bedside research, scientists have discovered a possible reason for the disease's resistance: The ability of the tuberculosis bacteria to infiltrate and settle down in a particular class of stem cell in the bone marrow. By doing so, the bacteria take advantage of the body's own mechanisms of self-renewal.