News 2025

Tabea Nicolai is a medical student in Lübeck. In October, she traveled to Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova, where she will spend over a year testing new biomarkers for monitoring the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in a new clinical study. The Republic of Moldova is a high-incidence area for antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis worldwide.

The aim of the TBpredict study, which Tabea Nicolai is conducting as part of her doctoral thesis with the support of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), is to evaluate new molecular and immunological markers that enable early and more precise assessment of the therapeutic success of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Lung function tests and physical performance parameters are also being examined in order to make predictions about performance impairment following recovery from the infectious disease. Approximately 50% of tuberculosis patients are affected by post-tuberculosis disease. They have persistent limited performance as a result of destruction of lung tissue by tuberculosis, even after the infectious disease has been overcome.

The new testing methods evaluated by Tabea Nicolai have already been tested at the Research Center Borstel. They allow for better prediction of treatment response than conventional methods for monitoring tuberculosis therapy, but they have never been tested simultaneously. Tabea Nicolai will find out which of the three methods is the best. Her colleague, Dina Pleșca from the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, is investigating the effects of tuberculosis on physical performance. The two work hand in hand.

She is supported in this by Ass. Prof. Dr. Dumitru Chesov from the Nicolae Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy (USMF) in Chișinău, Moldova, the local study director. Together with the German study director Dr. Thomas Theo Brehm and Dr. Maja Reimann, Dumitru Chesov is also a member of the Clinical Infectiology research group at the Research Center Borstel. Maja Reimann wants to create models to predict the extent of post-tuberculosis disease at the time of diagnosis using biomarkers. The group led by Tabea Nicolai's doctoral supervisor, Professor Christoph Lange, also receives support from Dr. Niklas Köhler from the Clinical Study Center in Borstel.

The project is part of a long-standing close scientific collaboration between the Research Center Borstel, the USMF, and the Institute of Pneumology in Chisinau. Before the study could begin, all methods had to be established in the laboratory in Chisinau, reagents had to be shipped to Moldova, and approvals had to be obtained from the ethics committees involved.

Now we're ready to go. “After the last few months, I am excited to finally be able to start here in Chisinau and take my first steps in science together with this fantastic team.”, says Tabea Nicolai. The first patient will be included this week.

Kontakt