Biogenetics pioneer to lecture on research to probe and tame tuberculosis

WestConn talk April 2 to feature leading expert on TB bacterial resistance to treatment

DANBURY, CONN. — Dr. William R. Jacobs Jr., one of the world’s leading researchers in the quest to understand the genetics of tuberculosis as a means to develop more effective vaccines and antibiotic treatments, will survey the history of this stubbornly prevalent disease and present findings from his pioneering studies of the TB bacterium in a lecture at Western Connecticut State University at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 2.

Jacobs, professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, will explore “Extremely Drug Resistant TB — Survival of the Fittest” in his talk in Room 125 of the Science Building on the WCSU Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. Admission will be free and the public is invited to attend. The talk will be followed by a reception with light refreshments.

Jacobs will deliver the annual featured lecture sponsored by the Connecticut Valley Branch of the American Society for Microbiology. His talk in the “Science at Night” series also is presented by the WCSU Honors Program and departments of biological and environmental sciences, nursing, and health promotion and exercise sciences.

Jacobs has been honored for his pioneering research as one of just 356 elite scientists currently designated as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigators. The institute’s Web site described selection for financial support as an HHMI Investigator as reserved for those researchers “recognized for their creativity and productivity … who continue to push the bounds of knowledge in many of the hottest areas of biomedical research…. HHMI urges its researchers to take risks, to explore unproven avenues, to embrace the unknown, even if it means uncertainty or the chance of failure.”

Since establishing his research laboratory at Albert Einstein in 1987, Jacobs has pioneered uncharted territory in molecular biology leading to significant breakthroughs in the genetic mapping of the tuberculosis bacterium and its response to widely used antibiotic drugs and vaccines. His innovative work to isolate highly effective virus tools for genetic manipulation known as bacteriophages — beginning with his isolation of the so-called “Bronx Bomber” phage now widely used in disease studies worldwide — has enabled researchers to explore bacterial diseases such as TB and their resistance to pharmaceuticals and vaccines with a precision previously impossible to achieve.

Among Jacobs’ most important breakthroughs was the successful identification in 1994 of the genetic targets for the common anti-TB drugs isoniazid and ethionamide, as well as mutations that enable the TB bacterium to develop resistance to these treatments and to the body’s immunological defenses. His findings have laid the groundwork for continuing efforts to develop relatively rapid and easily used tests for tuberculosis that promise to enhance the effectiveness of present treatment strategies, and to produce a new generation of anti-TB drugs in response to the emergence of TB strains highly resistant to multi-drug treatment.

“The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is clearly one of the world’s most successful pathogens, killing 2 to 3 million people every year,” observed Dr. Ruth Gyure, WestConn associate professor of biological and environmental sciences. The persistence of tuberculosis as one of the most deadly diseases in the Third World, exacerbated by the HIV epidemic over the past three decades, underscores “the global tragedy of this disease, the problem of drug resistance, and the urgency of finding a cure,” she noted.

Along with researchers worldwide, Gyure and her students are contributing to Jacobs’ research through her field studies to understand the ecology of the free-living environmental species of the tuberculosis genus, with a view to finding phages with novel properties in contaminated soils. She described Jacobs as an inspiration to the microbiologists and geneticists now working with him and building on his achievements. “It is wonderful to find a brilliant, world-class researcher who is also an amazingly talented speaker, who cares about working with students and teachers from elementary school through university levels, and who gets your creative juices flowing,” she said.

For more information, contact Gyure at (203) 837-8796 or gyurer@wcsu.edu, or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.

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