Scientists have long worked to understand why antibiotics that shut down most infections offer only limited success with tuberculosis (TB), the leading bacterial cause of death around the world.

NEW YORK (Jan. 10, 2013) — Despite major advances in high-throughput screening and genomic technologies, tuberculosis (TB) drug development remains hindered by a general inability to measure the effective penetration of chemical compounds into Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria (Mtb) which cause TB. To address this gap, the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation has awarded Weill Cornell Medical College funding to support a visiting Weill Cornell microbiologist's two-year research project at the Tres Cantos Open Lab in Spain to measure and analyze the permeability of chemical compounds into Mtb using novel metabolomics technology.

NEW YORK (Nov. 1, 2012) — Weill Cornell Medical College announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Researchers at Weill Cornell have been awarded three research grants totaling more than $1.5 million. Weill Cornell's Dr. Juan R. Cubillos-Ruiz, a postdoctoral research associate in medicine in the laboratory of Dean Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project titled, "Tailored Nanodevices to Understand Resistance Against HIV," Dr. Carl Nathan, chairman of microbiology and immunology and R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology, will investigate "Sequestration and asymmetric distribution of irreversibly oxidized proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)" and Dr. Kyu Rhee, associate professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology, will examine "Mining metabolosomes: A biochemical blueprint to new drug targets against non-replicating Mtb."

Mass spectrometry shows scientists how antibiotics function inside living bacteria, new insight may improve use of old drugs and accelerate development of smarter antibiotics to fight TB

NEW YORK (September 10, 2012) — An off-patent anti-inflammatory drug that costs around two cents for a daily dose in developing countries has been found by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College to kill both replicating and non-replicating drug resistant tuberculosis in the laboratory — a feat few currently approved TB drugs can do, and resistance to those is spreading.

Seven pharmaceutical companies and four research institutions including Weill Cornell Medical College, working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have launched an innovative partnership that aims to speed the discovery of essential new treatments for tuberculosis (TB).