Mycobacterium tuberculosis is among the most hazardous disease-causing agents in humans. Recently, its threat has increased worldwide. This poses timely issues for countries, such as Russia and India. The problem is largely due to the emergence of new multiresistant variant forms of tuberculosis. Traditional approaches to treatment of these forms proved to be not consistently efficient. Novel therapeutic approaches and strategies are obviously needed. Development and improvement of methods based on approaches of genome informatics and systems biology, which consider features of M. tuberculosis and the human immune system, offer promise. Emphasis on these developments is worldwide, involving Russia and India. However close international collaboration, exchange of information and experience between multidisciplinary scientists provide breakthroughs in this research area.
In the last years, new knowledge about the genomic structure, metabolic and functional features of M. tuberculosis has accumulated in basic and applied medicine in Russia and India. At this junction, to better integrate the efforts of the Russian and Indian partners in resolution of the issues of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, the Indo-Russian Joint Workshop Systems Biology and Genome Informatics of M. tuberculosis and other infectious diseases were held.
