Kyu Rhee - MD, PhD
Principal Investigator - TBRU Myco3V
Kyu is a Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases physician-scientist at Weill Cornell Medicine. His lab pioneered the development of metabolomic technologies to enable systems level biochemical studies of translationally relevant features of Mycobacterium tuberculosis physiology, drug response and drug resistance.
D. Branch Moody - MD
Principal Investigator - TBRU Myco3V
Branch is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School & a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His lab focuses on discovering molecular components of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell envelope and understanding their roles in controlling human host response in tuberculosis disease. The lab uses an in-house designed lipidomics platform to discover the particular molecules that control infection outcomes and serve as biomarkers of disease.
Robin Wood - DSc (Med), FR (SA)
Project 3 Lead - Site Principal Investigator
Professor Robin Wood Emeritus Professor in the Department of Medicine and Full Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) University of Cape Town (UCT). Robin leads the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation (DTHF) Aerobiology Research Centre (AR) which focuses on the development and implementation of advanced technologies for bioaerosol sampling towards improved understanding of tuberculosis disease and transmission. ARC has established a clinical pipeline for bioaerosol collection and analysis, coupling advanced aerosol capture and characterization with live-cell fluorescence microscopy.
Clare Smith - PhD
Animal Model Core Lead, Site Principal Investigator
Clare is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and of Cell Biology, and a member of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University. Her lab is interested in host genetic diversity, bacterial variation, and how these host-pathogen genetic interactions drive tuberculosis disease states. Clare leads the TBRU Myco3V Animal Model that leverages combined host and bacterial genome-wide approaches to identify suitable mouse lines to validate Mtb gene-lipid pairs involved in virulence and phenotypic variation in clinical Mtb strains
Jeremy Rock - PhD
Bacterial Genetics Core Lead
Jeremy Rock graduated from MIT and established a microbiology laboratory at Rockefeller University. His group develops new functional and chemical genomic tools to answer several fundamental questions related to the biology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). His TBRU project focuses on discovering novel vulnerabilities in rifampicin-resistant Mtb, which accounts for one-third of all deaths due to antimicrobial resistance.
Adriaan Minnaard - PhD
Chemical Synthesis Core Leader
Adriaan is a Professor and Head of the department of Chemical Biology, University of Groningen. Adriaan has an established research group in synthesis-driven natural product chemistry at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. His group focuses on the chemical synthesis and structure elucidation of complex mycobacterial lipids and related cellular components. New mycobacterial lipids discovered within TBRU are chemically prepared in sufficient quantities and free from contaminants for immunological studies.
Valerie Mizrahi - PhD
Co-Investigator, Site Principal Investigator
Professor Mizrahi is the professorial director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town. Her group focuses on mycobacterial physiology and metabolism relevant to TB drug discovery, drug resistance and mycobacterial persistence with emphasis on DNA, nucleotide, cofactor and energy metabolism. Her TBRU project aims to elucidate the role of the arabinogalactan layer of the cell envelope as an efficacy determinant of rifampicin and other drugs.
Digby Warner - PhD
Co-Investigator
Professor Warner is Deputy Director of the Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit (MMRU) and Full Member of the Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine (IDM) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), an inclusive, research-intensive African university that aims to address the challenges of our time through cutting-edge teaching, research, and facilities. Working with Professor Wood, Professor Warner has established a clinical pipeline for bioaerosol collection and analysis, coupling advanced aerosol capture and characterization with live-cell fluorescence microscopy.
Jacob Mayfield - PhD
Investigator - Lipidomics
Jake obtained his PhD in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology with Daphne Preuss at the University of Chicago and did his postdoctoral studies with Jasper Rine at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interest is quantitative genetic phenotypes, especially in disease and the host response. In the Moody lab, he uses mass spectrometry-based profiling to identify quantitative differences in metabolites like Mtb lipids and then uses and develops bioinformatics to connect important, real-world phenotypes to their genetic basis.
Mandy Mason - PhD
Investigator
Mandy is a Senior Lecturer, University of Cape Town, and is based at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine. Mandy is part of the Mizrahi group and TBRU project 2, which aims to elucidate the role of the arabinogalactan layer of the cell envelope as an efficacy determinant of rifampicin and other drugs.
