Bernd Meibohm, PhD, FCP, associate dean for Research and Graduate Programs and professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), had the findings of his latest research published in the February issue of Nature Medicine, a leading journal for the biomedical sciences.
The article, titled “Spectinamides: a new class of semisynthetic antituberculosis agents that overcome native drug efflux,” discussed significant breakthroughs in tuberculosis research.
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that, if not treated properly, can be fatal. Globally, at least one person is infected with TB each second, and someone dies of TB disease every 20 seconds. Approximately one-third of the world’s population is infected with TB. TB bacteria can become resistant to the medicines used to treat the disease.
Dr. Meibohm’s research is significant not only because of the rapid rise of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (1.4 million die of the disease every year), but also because the pharmaceutical industry has largely abandoned the development of new antibiotics, and drug discovery in this area is left to academia and nonprofit organizations.
The published research is a collaborative effort of Dr. Meibohm’s research team and investigators Richard Lee, PhD, at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Anne Lenaerts, PhD, at Colorado State University, and Erik Böttger, MD, at The University of Zurich.