Updates from the Chair | Microbiology and Immunology

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Study Discovers Tuberculosis Genes Necessary for Airborne Transmission

March 10, 2025

Tuberculosis bacteria rely on a family of genes that help them survive the challenging journey from one person’s lungs to another person’s during coughing, sneezing or talking, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The findings provide new targets for tuberculosis therapies that could simultaneously treat infection and prevent the spread of bacteria.

Until now, very little was known about this transmission process—when...

Designing Self-Destructing Bacteria to Make Effective Tuberculosis Vaccines

February 25, 2025

Working toward more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed two strains of mycobacteria with "kill switches" that can be triggered to stop the bacteria after they activate an immune response. Two preclinical studies, published, Jan. 10 in Nature Microbiology, tackle the challenge of engineering bacteria that are safe for use in controlled human infection trials or as better vaccines. While TB is under control in most developed countries, the...

Prestigious MERIT Grant Funds Research on How the Immune System Can Banish HIV

July 17, 2024

Weill Cornell Medicine has received $4.2 million to study how the immune system in some people infected with HIV can keep the virus under control, which could lead to novel therapeutic strategies for thwarting or eliminating HIV. Dr. Brad Jones, associate professor of immunology in medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill...

image of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis

NIH Funds Consortium to Accelerate Development of New TB Treatments

July 8, 2024

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). Investigators at the University of California, San Francisco; Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Vanderbilt University Medical Center comprise the other co-leads.

The Preclinical Design...

New Lab Test to Detect Persistent HIV Strains in Africa May Aid Search for Cure

July 2, 2024

A multinational team led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators developed a test that will help measure the persistence of HIV in people affected by viral strains found predominantly in Africa—a vital tool in the search for an HIV cure that will benefit patients around the world.

The study, published July 2 in Nature Communications, helps fill a major gap in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research. Most HIV studies...