In 2017, some 10 million people suffered from tuberculosis and 1.6 million died of the disease. One reason that infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis is so difficult to treat is because the bacteria can hide inside immune cells. University of Groningen scientists, together with a team from the Division of Rheumatology, immunology and Allergy led by professor D. Branch Moody at Harvard Medical School and several other colleagues, have now discovered a key mechanism in the bacteria which prevents the immune cells from killing them: the bacteria produce a unique type of antacid which gives the immune cells indigestion. The results were published in Nature Chemical Biology on 19 August 2019.