Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), kills more people than any other bacterium. TB control is threatened by the continued spread of drug resistance; multi-drug and extensively drug resistant Mtb require longer, more costly, treatment with multiple drugs causing worse side effects and have a lower likelihood of treatment success. The urgent need for better treatment options for drug resistant Mtb has led the World Health Organization to prioritize development of not only new individual antitubercular agents, but also new drug regimens. This introductory chapter of the special issue Novel insights into TB research and drug discovery within Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, gives a short overview about the general problems of TB and the treatment of this disease today, and introduces the review topics within this issue.

结核分枝杆菌（TB）的病原体结核分枝杆菌（Mtb）杀死的人比其他任何细菌都多。耐药性的持续蔓延威胁着结核病的控制；具有多种药物和广泛耐药性的Mtb需要更长的时间，更昂贵的多种药物治疗，导致更差的副作用，并且治疗成功的可能性较低。迫切需要更好的抗药性山药治疗方案，这导致世界卫生组织不仅将开发新的个体抗结核药，而且还将新药方案作为优先事项。本期专刊的介绍性章节结核病研究和药物发现的新颖见解 在《生物物理学和分子生物学的进展》一书中，简要概述了结核病的一般问题和当今对该病的治疗方法，并介绍了本期的综述主题。