Established in 2008 to honor Dr. George W. Comstock’s lifetime of work in public health and tuberculosis control, this annual lecture given by distinguished leaders addresses important public health issues in global tuberculosis control. This annual lecture is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology, The Center for Tuberculosis Research and the JHU TRAC.

“Progression from M. tuberculosis infection to tuberculosis disease” presented by:

Timothy R. Sterling, M.D.
David E. Rogers Professor of Medicine
Director, Vanderbilt Tuberculosis Center

Dr. Timothy Sterling is an infectious diseases physician-scientist whose work has informed global strategies for tuberculosis (TB) treatment and prevention. He has led or co-led pivotal multi-center clinical trials—such as PREVENT TB and ASTEROID—the former resulted in new CDC and WHO guidelines for M. tuberculosis infection management. As Director of the Vanderbilt Tuberculosis Center and Co-PI of RePORT-Brazil and RePORT-South Africa, he oversees prospective cohort studies that integrate host-pathogen genomics, immunologic profiling, and resistance surveillance and mechanisms. These efforts are further coordinated through his leadership of the RePORT International Coordinating Center, which harmonizes TB research across Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Uganda.

In parallel, Dr. Sterling is a senior investigator in the IeDEA network and the TB-Sentinel Research Network, enabling cross-cohort studies of HIV-TB coinfection, treatment toxicity, and long-term outcomes. He has also focused on fluoroquinolone resistance, rifamycin and isoniazid pharmacogenomics, and subclinical TB biomarkers. He has published over 380 scientific papers and continues to drive translational research on treatment-shortening regimens, biomarker-guided therapy, and the global implementation of TB control strategies.