With today’s celebration of World Tuberculosis Day, many health officials will use the day to teach people about the global epidemic – but for some University researchers, it’s a daily lesson.

The Tuberculosis research lab, located in the College of Veterinarian Medicine, works with three forms of the bacterial disease, said Fred Quinn, professor and head of the department of infectious disease.

One species, Mycobacterium shottsii (pronounced SHOT-see-eye) is a pathogen of fish that causes ulcers. Researchers want to discover how this bacterium spreads and causes the unsightly skin legions.

“Because M. shottsii is a pathogen of fish, it is killed at human body temperature,” Quinn wrote in an e-mail Monday.

The species closely resembles the TB that infects humans, and it can potentially trick the immune system and might make an ideal human TB vaccine, Quinn said.

Tuhina Gupta, a postdoctoral fellow, is working on multiple projects involving this TB pathogen of fish.

“M. shottsii was isolated in the Chesapeake Bay in striped bass fish,” Gupta said.

But researchers are stumped as to how the disease spreads. Gupta said she suspected the amoeba might be a likely host to this bacterium because both are located in the water and the amoeba absorbs many things in its environment.

For her project, Gupta grew an amoeba and infected it with M. shottsii. Using electron microscopy, she observed what occurred within the amoeba cell.

After a year of research, Gupta’s preliminary results show that the amoeba was not a likely medium for the pathogen to enter the fish. The importance of her work in discovering how the disease spreads is significant, as fish are a food source of humans.

TB is an airborne infectious disease that can spread when people cough, according to the World Health Organization. Upon early detection and full treatment, the disease can become non-infectious and be cured. Most deaths from TB occur in the developing countries of Africa and Asia. In 2006, an estimated 1.5 million people died from TB, according to the WHO Web site.

Another University research project works with a genome section of Mycobacterium tuberculosis – the scientific name of TB – that produces vitamin B12. A genome contains DNA, an organism’s genetic material, and is divided into distinct units called genes.

This particular genome section is hypothesized to increase the virulence of TB in humans, said Natasha Lee, an undergraduate researcher and junior from Peachtree City.

Her job is to select from the many genes found in this genome to place in circular pieces of DNA, called plasmids. Lee’s mentor, a graduate student researcher, then transfers the plasmids to human host cells to observe if the host cells will show similar symptoms as when the entire M. tuberculosis is present.

If the physical symptoms match, researchers know that those particular genes are important in increasing the virulence of TB. This knowledge of how the disease behaves in the human host cell can lead to better treatment and diagnosis methods, and better ways to make vaccines, Lee said.

“The biggest problem with TB is that it goes unnoticed because there’s not an effective way to diagnose it until it’s in a later stage, which is more harmful to the body,” Lee said.

Because TB is a respiratory disease that infects the lungs, researchers work in a secured lab room that requires them to scan their finger to gain entry.

“In this biosafety level three lab, they are required to wear special clothing and respirators,” Quinn said.

The highest biosafety level is four, which deals with such deadly viruses as smallpox. There are only two such labs in Georgia – at Georgia State College and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.