Tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious concern more than two decades on from when the World Health Organization declared it a global health emergency. The alarming rise of antibiotic resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiological agent of TB, has made it exceedingly difficult to control the disease with the existing portfolio of anti-TB chemotherapy. The development of effective drugs with novel mechanism(s) of action is thus of paramount importance to tackle drug resistance. The development of novel chemical entities requires more than 10 years of research, requiring high-risk investment to become commercially available. Repurposing pre-existing drugs offers a solution to circumvent this mammoth investment in time and funds. In this context, several drugs with known safety and toxicity profiles have been evaluated against the TB pathogen and found to be efficacious against its different physiological states. As the endogenous targets of these drugs in the TB bacillus are most likely to be novel, there is minimal chance of cross-resistance with front-line anti-TB drugs. Also, reports that some of these drugs may potentially have multiple targets means that the possibility of the development of resistance against them is minimal. Thus repurposing existing molecules offers immense promise to tackle extensively drug-resistant TB infections.

It is essential that clinical trials of NSAIDs continue, in order to assess their suitability for addition to the current TB treatment regimen. Repurposing molecules such as NSAIDs is a vital, low-risk strategy to combat the trend of rapidly increasing antibiotic resistance.

In male X-linked meiotic drive systems, the driver causes degeneration of Y-bearing sperm, leading to female-biased offspring sex ratios. This potentially leads to a two-fold transmission advantage to drive chromosomes. However, drive-bearing sperm often do poorly in sperm competition, limiting their ability to spread. We use the stalk-eyed fly, Teleopsis dalmanni, to investigate the success of the X-linked Sex Ratio (SR) meiotic drive system. In this species, polyandrous matings, where a female mates with multiple males, are common. Recent findings demonstrate SR males transfer the same numbers of viable sperm as wildtype (ST) males during mating, implying that they do not necessarily have reduced fertility under sperm competition. Reciprocal mating trials were performed to measure the success of SR and ST sperm in double mated females, with either a SR or ST male mated first followed by a male of the alternative genotype. There was no significant difference in the number of offspring sired by SR and ST males. This equivalence held regardless of whether the SR male mated first or second. We show these results are consistent with previous studies that suggested SR male sperm do poorly in sperm competition. Future experiments will determine whether the competitive ability of SR males is maintained under higher stress conditions likely to be experienced in nature, in which females mate repeatedly with multiple males. The results from the current study helps to explain the high meiotic drive frequency of around 20% in wild populations in this species.