Dr Reto Guler

CHI research group: General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) 
CHI membership: Affiliate member

Reto Guler is a Full Professor based at the Division of Immunology, University of Cape Town. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine (IDM) and Affiliated Member at the CHI. His current research work aims to identify targets for pathogen and host-directed drug therapy for tuberculosis. This includes the identification of statins and host non-coding RNAs as host-directed drug therapy for TB and the role of epigenetics in host immunity to TB. He is the coordinator of the international Statin TB consortium funded by EDCTP to conduct a clinical trial investigating the use of statins to prevent chronic lung inflammation and potentially TB relapse. He is a member of the international FANTOM consortium on genome-wide transcriptome analysis using CAGE transcriptomics. His research further investigates Minor Groove Binders as novel anti-mycobacterial agents and non-ionic surfactant vesicles as a drug delivery system for tuberculosis.

Research engagements:

• Preventing tuberculosis relapse and chronic lung disease (StatinTB)
• Targeting non-coding RNAs as host-directed drug therapy for tuberculosis
• Epigenetics in host immunity to tuberculosis
• Novel anti-mycobacterial agents