Testing times in fight against TB

As a new flank opens in the battle against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, diagnostics researchers such as Renu Verma are primed for action. In March 2025, the Central government announced its research agencies had completed the whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 10,249 tuberculosis (TB) bacterial isolates. Its goal is to do 32,200 (bit.ly/tbgenome-India).

Verma has expertise in designing and testing novel methods for point-of-care TB diagnostics, transmission surveillance, and treatment. In 2021, as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's School of Medicine, she was part of a team that combined an algorithm with a rapid molecular test to judge how quickly patients would metabolise a first-line TB drug based on mutations in a gene, to guide optimum dosing (bit.ly/TB-dosing). Now, as a Faculty Scientist at the Institute of Bioinformatics, Bengaluru, she is eager to access the Indian WGS data for better drug-resistant TB tests. "I can't wait," Verma says.