Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Advancing Biomedical Research in Pulmonary Non-Tuberculosis Mycobacterial (NTM) Infections

This NOSI aims to stimulate advances in diagnosis and treatment of NTM infections that cause or exacerbate pulmonary disease such as Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium avium complex, and Mycobacterium kansasii.  Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• Development of new therapeutics to treat pulmonary NTM diseases.
• Development of shorter, safer and more effective combination treatment regimens for pulmonary NTM diseases.
• Development of improved approaches to identify the optimal combination of therapeutic interventions for pulmonary NTM diseases.
• Development and comparison of improved preclinical models of pulmonary NTM diseases and especially more clinically predictive mouse models that sustain infection and develop relevant disease pathology.
• Development of rapid, NTM drug susceptibility testing and NTM point of care molecular diagnostics based on emerging technologies.   
• Development of diagnostics to rapidly and specifically identify NTM strains and differentiate them from other species of mycobacteria.
• Research to better understand factors affecting progression from asymptomatic infections to symptomatic pulmonary NTM diseases.
• Research to improve knowledge of the U.S. prevalence, incidence and demographics of NTM diseas