Leonardo Barreto, Public Health Technologist at Instituto Nacional de Infectologia Evandro Chagas – FIOCRUZ, has spent the last 6 months in the Sterling Lab evaluating subtle changes in drug resistance (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration - MIC) in M. tuberculosis isolates from study participants from the NIH-funded project “Predictors of treatment toxicity, failure, and relapse in HIV-related tuberculosis” (R01AI120790).
His work in the BSL3 lab with 175 M. tuberculosis isolates, has opened doors to a variety of collaborative opportunities. In early August, Leo visited the Sarah Fortune Lab at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where together with the Christopher Sassetti Lab at UMass’s Chan Medical School, work is underway to interpret changes in MIC in the context of the underlying whole genome sequencing, based on his work.
We look forward to Leo’s continued efforts in public health research and wish him the best as he returns home to Brazil.