The project entitled "European-Latin American Tuberculosis Research Collaboration Network", co-directed, from the http://en.vhir.org/portal1/grup-equip.asp?s=recerca&contentid=186953 Infectious Diseases Research group at VHIR, and led by Dr. Cecile Magis of the Stichting Katholiedke Universiteit in Nijmegen (Netherlands), has won the 2018 Call for a Marie Curie grant from the European RISE program. Over the next 4 years, researchers from different countries work together to improve the diagnosis and treatment of what is still the deadliest disease in the world.The project is included within the Horizon 2020 program, specifically the RISE (Research and Innovation Staff Exchange) program of the European Union, which aims to "create exchange networks between researchers to share and promote knowledge - explains Dr. Sánchez-. It seeks to integrate countries with a high and lesser level of scientific development, and bring together senior and new researchers."This proposal involves different institutions from Holland, Portugal, Spain, Paraguay and South Africa, with a total budget of almost one million euros.The studies that will be carried out will deepen in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. In particular, they will assess the effectiveness and utility of a portable diagnostic device through the breath, which can be useful for the screening of large populations, to which slower and more complex conventional diagnostic techniques cannot be applied. On the treatment, large trials with high doses of rifampicin, one of the first line drugs for tuberculosis, will be performed. The idea is to determine if, at higher doses, it can be more effective (the current dose was chosen for economic reasons since the drug was very expensive).Each of the participating institutions will be in charge of developing one or more lines of research. Researchers at VHIR, headed by Dr. Sánchez, will lead the study that will evaluate the treatment with high doses of rifampicin. In addition, researchers' exchanges between the institutions will be held to learn and transmit knowledge. "Our researchers will travel to Holland in order to learn pharmacogenetic aspects, and to Paraguay for field studies in real situations, with large samples of patients, specifically, in prisons, where the incidence of tuberculosis is high, "explains Dr. Sánchez. The idea is that the collaboration does not end when the project finishes but that it will continue in the future in order to carry out new collaboration projects between Europe and Latin America. Despite the existing treatments, tuberculosis is the leading cause of death due to infectious disease in the world. A fact influenced by the long 6-month treatment, which causes many patients to quit it before its completion, and the fact that almost a third of the cases are not diagnosed.In 2016, the WHO launched the "End of Tuberculosis" Strategy, an ambitious project aimed at reducing the incidence of the disease by 90% by 2035 and lowering up to 1 case per million worldwide in 2050. The ways to accomplish it include, among others, to optimize current treatments, cut their length and improve the existing diagnostic methods. The project presented can help achieve this goal.