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This is Science Friday. I'm Flora Lichten.

Today in the podcast, how growing up in Burundi in East Africa led a scientist to her life's work.

During the time I was born, it was plagued by Civil War at a time.

And in the midst of it, I would notice people getting sick and not getting better.

We're continuing our conversation from yesterday about tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease in the world.

This bacterium kills more than a million people every year.

But scientifically, it's also just a fascinating bug.

It can hide in the body and evade antibiotics.

So here to nerd out on the science of TB is Dr. Marek Camariza,

who's dedicated her career to getting to know this deadly bacterium

and figuring out new tools to suss it out.

Murray is a chemical biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles,

and a co-founder of Ali Lux Biosciences, a company that

makes tools for rapid TB detection and treatment for low resource areas.

Marais, welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you for having me.

Let's start with a little bit about you.

How did you find your way to TB research?

Oh, God, how many hours do we have?

I'm here for all of it.

Yes.

...