An Inside Story Behind the Global Battle With Pathogenic Microbes
"Most of the bacteria in our bodies live in a friendly consortium with us. In fact, we need them," says Dr. Carl Nathan, the R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology and director of the Abby and Howard P. Milstein Program in the Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease.
"But a few aggressive species learned the trick of 'keeping their heads down' and surviving long before we were walking the earth. They are smart. They are very good at evolving resistance to antibiotics used to fight worldwide killers like TB and malaria — as well as infections we are more familiar with in this country such as pneumonia and sepsis.
"We assume there is a pill for these more familiar infections, and up to now there has been. But it's increasingly becoming the case that there is no treatment. We are emptying our medicine chest of effective drugs to use against them," says Dr. Nathan, who is also chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Glimmer of Good News
At Weill Cornell, thanks to a Gates Foundation grant, Dr. Nathan and his associates are screening hundreds of thousands of compounds for new drugs. "One that we found is an anti-inflammatory that has been used for aches and pains by hundreds of thousands of people for many years and, it turns out, is also effective in killing TB bacteria. It could be a fast track to a new TB drug. Our goal is to share our findings with any scientists who are interested to speed up discoveries for life-saving treatments."
Dr. Nathan was recently inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his research that has led to new understanding of how the immune system defends the host against infection. His lab at Weill Cornell is screening drugs long-approved for a variety of treatments that might also be used as weapons against bacteria, as well as diverse chemical compounds whose potential anti-infectious activities have not yet been characterized.
The Research Leads to Cures Initiative
With these efforts, Dr. Nathan and other Weill Cornell scientists are hoping to contribute to the development of effective, safe treatments for infectious diseases around the world. These researchers are the heart of the Research Leads to Cures Initiative — a new and critical phase of the Discoveries that Make a Difference Campaign.
Learn more about the people leading these efforts in translational research and patient care, and find out how you can help fulfill the promise of the many medical discoveries that are under way here at Weill Cornell.