Despite more than a century of research, tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the leading causes of death in the world. Although drug therapy is available, it remains cumbersome and difficult to administer in areas of the developing world where TB is most prevalent. Moreover, the rise of HIV and consequent marked increase in TB susceptibility and the increasing appearance of drug resistant bacterial strains has made management of infection far more difficult. New approaches to treatment and prevention could have an enormous impact on the disease. This meeting will bring together different disciplines, including microbial genomics and genetics, bacterial physiology, systems biology and drug development, to explore how Mycobacterium tuberculosis is transmitted and causes disease. In addition, the conference will be paired with a concurrent meeting that explores host responses to TB. Together, these two conferences will cover a breadth of TB biology and examine the interface between the host and pathogen. The conference will provide an opportunity for interactions among those from different fields and include many participants from disciplines that would not ordinarily participate in a meeting devoted exclusively to TB. We hope to stimulate new collaborations and introduce novel areas of biology so that the field will be positioned to tackle the many remaining challenges for combating this disease. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to develop and engage the next generation of researchers in the field by including junior and early stage investigators in the meeting format.