Dr. Kyu Y. Rhee, Assistant Professor of Medicine, wins Gates Grand Challenges Award

Dr. Rhee’s major projects at Weill Cornell Medical College focus on tuberculosis drug development to combat treatment failures and multi-drug resistance (Mtb) worldwide.  In previous work, he examined how Nitric Oxide (NO) damaged Mtb by identifying NO’s targets on Mtb. Dr. Rhee is currently building off this work by further evaluating the specific metabolic enzymes targeted by NO.  He aims to be able to use this information like a blueprint to design new drugs that mimic NO's ability to kill Mtb while being impervious to Mtb's NO defenses.
 

Dr. Kyu Y. Rhee, M.D., Ph.D.

 Dr. Kyu Rhee successfully competed for a major Gates Grand Challenges Exploration Grant with his proposal entitled “Mining Metabolosomes:  A Biochemical Blueprint to New Drug Targets Against Non-Replicating TB”. The Grand Challenges Exploration grant funds innovation to solve key health problems in the developing world.

Dr. Rhee’s Phase II funded research project will test the theory that tuberculosis utilizes metabolosomes (protein-based metabolic structures) to enter into, maintain and exit from latency. Understanding how metabolosomes work will aid in development of drugs that target tuberculosis.