Dr. Kyu Rhee and colleagues have uncovered a link between the function of a well-known enzyme and the virulence of the TB bacterium. Their findings are helping to uncover why the TB bacterium is naturally resistant to antibiotic treatment, and they suggest a strategy that could make new and existing drugs more powerful in treating TB. TB is the world's leading bacterial cause of death.
Initiated in 2002, the Fellow Award in Research is presented annually to fellows within the Weill Department of Medicine who have presented outstanding research. This year's finalists were announced at the June 10 Medicine Grand Rounds (12th Annual).
Dr. Henry W. Murray has been working on leishmaniasis, in the laboratory and clinically, for nearly 35 years. For 15 years he carried out clinical treatment trials research in visceral leishmaniasis ("kala-azar") India. The drug he and colleagues in India introduced and tested in the treatment of kala-azar, miltefosine, has been approved by the FDA as the first effective oral agent for leishmaniasis (visceral, cutaneous and mucosal infection).
The project, which focuses on the racial differences in response to antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection, is supported by the NIH-funded ACTG (AIDS Clinical Trials Group). In the field of HIV patient care, racial/ethnic disparities in treatment outcome have been well documented at the local and national level, however the source of this disparity is not well elucidated.
Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, an internationally recognized expert on HIV-AIDS and a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, appeared in an HBO documentary on AIDS.
Dr. Kyu Y. Rhee, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, and a team of physician-scientists applied the technology of mass spectrometry to study the process by which existing antibiotics attack tuberculosis once inside bacterial cells.
The 2012 Department of Medicine Investigator Award finalists were announced and their talks were delivered during Grand Rounds on May 22, 2012. This was the 21st annual presentation of the DOM Investigator Award, which is presented to members of the Department of Medicine, below the rank of professor, who perform on an outstanding level in the areas of clinical and/or basic biomedical research. The award is generously supported by the Michael Wolk Foundation.
A study in the journal AIDS identifies a connection between the use of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and the blood disorder polycythemia among HIV-infected men. This is the first study on polycythemia in HIV-infected men and has led to additional recommendations for the treatment of patients with HIV.
Dr. Linnie Golightly successfully competed for an R01 grant, entitled "Endothelial Progenitor cells and the Pathogenesis of Cerebral Malaria," and also secured funding through the Gates Challenge Grants with Alberto Bilenca at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel and John March at Cornell in Ithaca to develop a point-of-care test of malaria by a cell phone imaging probe and a novel cholera vaccine based upon in vivo bacterial communication pathways.
Dr. Mohamad F. Jamiluddin, a former fellow in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, obtained a patent and produced several research papers in the field of HIV-AIDS within his first two years of training. His journey – emigrating from India to America – is featured in a documentary premiering on HBO, July 4, 2011.
