Could omics unlock the secret of surviving tuberculous meningitis?

Despite devastating mortality among patients with tuberculosis meningitis, little progress has been made in understanding the pathophysiology of this disease since the landmark autopsy studies of Rich and McCordick in the 1930s.1 Even with treatment, two-thirds of patients die or are left with severe neurological deficits, including cognitive impairment, epilepsy, and paralysis.2 In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Arjan van Laarhoven and colleagues3 present an elegant systems biology (or multi-omics) approach designed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms that cause these dire outcomes and ultimately aiming to identify new approaches to therapeutics.