Wits scientists recognised for their societal impact on TB diagnosis
- FHS Communications
“It's incredible. We have this little lab in Braamfontein on the top of Constitution Hill, but the work done there impacts the whole world. We create meaning and impact,” says Professor Bavesh Kana, the Director and lead investigator of the Wits node of the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research (CBTBR).
Professor Kana and his team received the prestigious 2024 National Research Foundation (NRF) Societal?Impact?Award to honour their outstanding research that has boosted people's standard of living. This award recognises CBTBR’s work on creating quality diagnostic assurance systems for infectious diseases.
This work is centred around addressing specimen mix-ups and cross-contamination, which are the risks associated with pathological diagnostics. These can only be prevented by vigorous specimen collection and handling. The CBTBR team develops controls that ensure that such mix-ups (which can lead to test results being given to the wrong patient) do not occur. However, these systems should also account for secure interventions to limit the transmissibility of highly contagious airborne infectious diseases like tuberculosis (TB). Kana says that this entails continuously testing known bacteria and passing them through the laboratory flow to check that their results are indeed what they are expected to be.
Before the advancements of molecular diagnostics, South Africa used bacterial culturing to test TB— a process that admittedly took too long, further delaying the?commencement of patients’ treatment. “It was horrible in terms of the healthcare system. We were not giving the patients the best they deserve. So, these new tests will allow people to access diagnostics faster, and more importantly, it would allow them to get into treatment faster. But the hiccup was, how do we know the diagnostics work?” asked Kana.
This question concerned the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and the National Priority Program (NPP) whom Kana says approached his team to find the answers. This resulted in the team’s development of their first-generation testing technology, which verifies the?proficiency of diagnostic devices used for molecular testing.
The second part of the answer addressed finding safe ways to work with TB bacteria and significantly cutting down the three-month-long lead time of growing the bacteria in the lab. “We took a bacterium that lives in the sand, completely safe, harmless, not dangerous. But it looks very much like the TB bacteria. If you look at it under the microscope, it's got the same shape. It's got roughly the same kind of a wall. And we took this little piece of DNA that these TB diagnostic devices looked for and engineered it into the soil,” explains Kana.
This process is called biomimicry – a scientific practice that imitates the biological tactics of animals and plants to address problems similar to those that people and communities encounter. This approach has positively impacted the flow of patient care for infectious diseases. “Very quickly, we went from an incredibly big and debilitating chokepoint in diagnostics to being able to roll out this thing to all labs in South Africa,” he adds.
CBTBR’s innovation also has a global reach, having been expanded to 50 other countries and pivoted for the diagnosis of several more disorders. The products that this small team of African scientists developed?have become a catalyst for external quality assessment (EQA), particularly in TB diagnosis. Their broad reach has led to successes in commercialising these products through SmartSpot Quality - a private company that emerged from the research program of the CBTBR and the Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology (DMMH) at Wits University. It manages the global patent licensing of quality control products for molecular diagnostics.
The Societal Impact Award has brought invaluable recognition to the CBTBR team’s research, highlighting its significance beyond the scientific community and into real-world applications. “It is a rewarding acknowledgement of the hard work, dedication, and passion that goes into addressing complex public health issues. It reinforces the relevance and importance of the work, especially when addressing global challenges like TB, which still affects millions of people worldwide,” says Dr Bhavna Gordhan, a team member and Principal Medical Scientist at CBTBR. She adds that their team hopes to have greater public engagement that will destigmatise TB and promote its prevention and treatment as they leverage on their newly found acclamation.
Image: The NRF Societal?Impact?certificate that was awarded to the CBTBR team
Image: Professor Bavesh Kana giving a speech during a dinner party that the Vice-Chancellor hosted to congratulate him and his team