Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have received a $17.4 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to discover new approaches to shorten tuberculosis (TB) treatment, potentially making it easier for patients to complete therapy. The researchers aim to shift TB drug development toward creating new drugs from the start to work in the combinations needed to cure TB.
Though a course of antibiotics, when completed, can cure the infectious disease that most commonly affects the lungs, TB is still among the top 10 causes of death worldwide. “The current regimen works, but the drugs are far from ideal and must be taken over four to six months,” said co-principal investigator Dr. Kyu Rhee, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell. “They have serious side effects, so many patients stop taking them once they feel better but long before they are cured.”
