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On 24th March each year, the world commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the causative agent of tuberculosis
We have taken this opportunity to host a one-day symposium March every year since 2010, to highlight contemporary TB research, control measures and policy initiatives, and to discuss future challenges. Our aim is to connect with all the people who work on, or are affected by TB: researchers; people in surveillance, control and policy; those in diagnostics and patient care; and affected patients and communities. These symposia have been held annually since 2010. Since 2014, we have partnered with the LSHTM TB Centre. In addition, as in recent years, we join with UCSF for one session as our day ends and theirs begins.
World TB Day Symposium 2026
Tuesday March 24th 2026
Hybrid event: UCL Institute for Child Health & online
The video of the event is now available on our YouTube channel.
Download the PDF of the event brochure:
Programme
08:30: Arrival, registration, refreshments
09:00: Welcome and introductory remarks
Chairs: Marc Lipman (UCL), Sedona Sweeney (LSHTM)
- Ibrahim Abubakar (Vice Provost (Health), UCL)
- Liam Smeeth (Director, LSHTM)
- Anja Madhvani: Lived experience of TB / PPI
09:20: Session 1: TB in a changing world - Beyond the lungs
This session explores TB beyond the lungs — both in terms of extra-pulmonary disease and the need for holistic, patient-centred care. It will start with presentation of lived experience of extrapulmonary TB, and then address lymph node and cardiac TB, highlighting clinical challenges, followed by a discussion on multimorbidity in TB and its impact on outcomes. The session will conclude with methods for estimating the costs of TB services when they are integrated into primary healthcare, reflecting the fact that integration can reduce overall resource requirements and strengthen comprehensive and sustainable TB care.
Chairs: Ilaria Motta (UCL), Sedona Sweeney (LSHTM)
- Blessi Kumar: Lived experience of extrapulmonary TB
- Conor Tweed (UCL) Lymph Node TB: Important, overlooked, and challenging
- Marcello Scopazzini (LSHTM) TB and the heart: Updates from the field
- Katherine Hill (University of St Andrews) Multimorbidity in TB
- Andres Madriz Montero (LSHTM) Improving costs for TB service scale-up and integration
10:30: Break
11:00: Session 2: TB in a changing world - Global trends and health systems
This session explores how global change, including climate stress, population mobility, border policies, and constrained resources, are reshaping the TB epidemic and challenging existing health system responses. It will examine how TB disease states are being redefined, and the need for innovative drug formulations and delivery strategies to sustain progress towards ending TB.
Chairs: Lucy Bell (UCL), Leopold Tientcheu (MRC Gambia at LSHTM)
- Finn McQuaid (LSHTM) TB and climate change
- Jess Potter (UCL) TB: An exclusionary politics of care
- Nicky McCreesh (LSHTM) Are symptoms an adequate classifier of TB disease state?
- Simon Tiberi (GSK) One Shot Ahead: How can long‑acting TB therapies strengthen fragile health systems
12:00: TB in a changing world: Panel discussion - “Should high-income country institutions have a declining role in TB research?”
Chairs: Helen Stagg (LSHTM), Molebogeng (Lele) Rangaka (UCL)
Equity, decolonialisation, declining ‘global health’ funding... Through panel and audience participation, this session aims for a nuanced discussion on the future of high-income country institutions on the global TB research stage.
Panellists: Thiago Cerqueira Silva (LSHTM), Trinh Duong (UCL), Refiloe Matji (Gates Foundation), Tim McHugh (UCL), Toyin Togun (LSHTM & MRC Gambia)
13:00: Lunch
14:00: Session 3: Early Career Researcher Turbo Talks
Chairs: Katherine Horton (LSHTM), Frank Kloprogge (UCL)
- Chaelin Kim (LSHTM) Impact of fluoroquinolone resistance on the cost-effectiveness of empiric treatment for multidrug- or rifampicin-resistant TB
- Clare Thakker (UCL) CD4 T cell induced macrophage death impairs M. tuberculosis restriction
- Constantine Mutata (University of Zimbabwe) Demographic and clinical characteristics of a prospective African TB meningitis case-control diagnostic study nested within the SURE trial (SURE+DP)
- Dhyan Ayuningtyas (UCL) Phenotypic heterogeneity as mechanism of persistence in M. tuberculosis?
- Dan Carter (LSHTM) What works, for whom, and how much? A targeted maximum likelihood analysis of cash transfers for TB in Brazil
- Ellen Steward (UCL) Prioritising use cases for TB biomarker and test development: A stakeholder consensus study
- Fatou Faal (LSHTM) Differential responses of M. tuberculosis complex lineages to TB treatment regimens
- Peter Velickovic (UCL) Translational pharmacology and dose rationale for imatinib and doramapimod as a host-directed therapy for the treatment of pulmonary TB
- Kathy Thomas (LSHTM) Preparing for a new TB vaccine: Insights from South African stakeholders on implementation strategies and priorities
- Shahida Rafique (UCL) Riboswitches as sentinels of metabolic adaptation in M. tuberculosis
15:00: Break
15:30: Session 4: TB in a changing world - The potential for AI to accelerate progress towards ending TB
This session explores the potential of artificial intelligence (both generative AI and traditional machine learning applications) to accelerate progress towards ending TB through examples spanning therapeutic discovery, diagnostics, and public health action, with a focus on translating innovation into impact, while critically examining both the opportunities and limitations of AI-enabled approaches.
Chairs: Sanjib Bhakta (UCL/Birkbeck), Maria Ruperez Larrea (LSHTM)
- Mat Todd (UCL) Ligand-AI: A community call for proteins to kick-start new TB drug discovery projects
- Sacha Wright (UCL) LLMs to accelerate evidence synthesis - lessons from the TB-BIOATLAS project
- Asad Zaidi (UCL) Can AI bridge health inequities in TB services for LMICs?
- Victory Edem (LSHTM) Harnessing AI to support paediatric tuberculosis diagnosis
16:30: UCSF link-up
16:40: Closing remarks
17:00 - 18:30: Reception
This is subject to change. For information, or for opportunities to sponsor the event, contact us at tb@ucl.ac.uk
Attendance certificates will be available on request; contact us at tb@ucl.ac.uk
Recording
The event will be recorded, and the link will be listed on this page when available
We are grateful to our sponsors for this event: Institutional Support from The Global Fund, and Commercial Support from Bruker, Cepheid, Qiagen and Revvity, who together help us provide refreshments and an evening reception to people attending in-person, and high quality video for online participants
