Weill Cornell Receives $2.4 Million In Grants From Gates Foundation To Fight Tuberculosis

Main Category: Tuberculosis
Also Included In: Respiratory / Asthma;  Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 13 Dec 2007 - 6:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Weill Cornell Medical College has received two grants totaling $2.4 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help fight tuberculosis, an epidemic that infects one-third of the world's people and kills nearly two million yearly -- mostly in the poorest countries.

The grants will support research towards developing innovative TB drugs that are more effective than current treatment options. Even the best available TB drugs require difficult and lengthy regimens and are increasingly losing their effectiveness; last year there were more than 400,000 cases of drug-resistant TB. In addition, there is a need for faster-acting TB drugs; current drugs must be taken for at least six months to be fully effective. Many patients, for various reasons, do not complete the full course of treatment, which leads to the development of drug-resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the organism that causes TB.

"We are very grateful to the Gates Foundation for supporting our efforts to fight tuberculosis," says Dr. Antonio M. Gotto Jr., the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College. "This important work is also made possible using the advanced technology available at our Abby and Howard P. Milstein Chemistry Core Facility, which opened last year."

"These grants support research focused on testing many existing chemical compounds for their potential ability to kill or interfere with the organism that causes TB. We already know of and use some compounds that kill or weaken TB pathogens when they are in the replicating phase. Being able to kill TB organisms in their non-replicating phase, which represents most of their existence, will be key to shortening curative TB therapy from the current six months (or longer) to perhaps just a couple of weeks," says Dr. Carl. F. Nathan, chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, and director of the Abby and Howard P. Milstein Program in Chemical Biology. "Finding those effective compounds may also mean more effective therapies for the emerging drug-resistant forms of TB." Dr. Nathan is a principal investigator on one of the two Gates Foundation grants.

Dr. Nathan and his colleagues have helped to shape our basic understanding of innate immunity and host-pathogen interactions. He introduced the concepts of cytokine-mediated activation and deactivation of macrophages, helped identify the first macrophage activating factor (interferon-g) and its therapeutic potential, demonstrated the role of the respiratory burst in macrophage biology, and pioneered numerous advances in inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which plays a key role in the immune system. These contributions inform current research efforts, including those directed at macrophage interactions with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

"These grants will also help us to demonstrate to drug companies a safe way to screen hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds against the TB organism so the companies can do it themselves," says Dr. Nathan. "Right now very few drug companies have the special core facilities needed to do such work without risk of infection."

Dr. Dirk Schnappinger, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and principal investigator on one of the Gates Foundation grants, and colleagues are focused on multidisciplinary work in functional genomics, molecular genetics and biochemistry aimed at understanding the contributions of individual genes in M. tuberculosis. They have developed systems that allow silencing of mycobacterial genes in vitro and during macrophage infections. They are using these systems to evaluate the role of specific genes that seem important for the survival of M. tuberculosis within the host. These studies should provide proof-of-principle for the hypotheses that gene silencing can be used to: 1) identify biological processes that are essential for growth and persistence of mycobacteria during infections in the mouse; 2) genetically mimic the action of antibiotics on the progression of M. tuberculosis infections and thus aid the prioritization of drug targets; and 3) study the function of essential genes using functional genomics.

Dr. Nathan's and Dr. Schnappinger's grants are two of 11 new grants, totaling $280 million, by the Gates Foundation to speed research and development on promising vaccines, diagnostic tests and treatments to help reduce the global TB burden.

----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------

Weill Cornell Medical College

Weill Cornell Medical College, the New York City-based medical school of Cornell University, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care, and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Weill Cornell, a principal academic affiliate of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, offers an innovative curriculum that integrates the teaching of basic and clinical sciences, problem-based learning, office-based preceptorships, and primary care and doctoring courses. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell are engaged in cutting-edge research in areas such as stem cells, genetics and gene therapy, geriatrics, neuroscience, structural biology, cardiovascular medicine, infectious disease, obesity, cancer, psychiatry and public health -- and they continue to delve ever deeper into the molecular basis of disease in an effort to discovery new therapies. Weill Cornell, in its commitment to global health and education, has a strong presence in nations such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Weill Cornell is the first U.S.-based medical school to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances, including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, the first indication of bone marrow's critical role in tumor growth, and, most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. For more information, visit http://www.med.cornell.edu/.

Source: Andrew Klein
New York- Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center/Weill Cornell Medical College