Dr. Dirk Schnappinger

As chair, Dr. Ehrt seeks to build on the department’s already robust national and international footprint in tuberculosis research and expand its portfolio in other areas of research and innovation.

Working toward more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, researchers have developed two strains of mycobacteria with "kill switches" that can be triggered to stop the bacteria after they activate an immune response.

A new consortium co-led by Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $31 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to accelerate the development of faster, more effective treatment regimens for tuberculosis (TB).

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers and the TB Drug Accelerator have received two grants totaling $6.8 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study tuberculosis (TB) drug development.

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have identified a protein in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) that contributes to drug tolerance, a phenomenon that allows bacteria to survive treatment with drugs that would normally kill them.

A better understanding of the biology of tuberculosis (TB) infection and improved drug combinations for the disease are two areas of research in which the TB Drug Accelerator (TBDA) has made strides since its inception a decade ago.

By sabotaging one of the tuberculosis bacterium’s defenses against antibiotics, Weill Cornell Medicine investigators may have found a way to accelerate treatment for the disease and possibly overcome growing resistance to existing therapies.