# Project 2: Essential metabolic objectives of M. tuberculosis aerobiology

> **NIH NIH P01** · WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV · 2021 · $792,016

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis (TB) is both among the most transmissible causes of death and the leading cause of death due to
an infectious disease worldwide, making it the leading cause of death due to a curable disease. Control of the
pandemic thus requires not only faster and more effective diagnostic tests and cures, but also novel and
specific transmission blocking interventions. This project focuses on the latter, and seeks to identify conserved
and specific metabolic processes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of TB, whose
inhibition has the potential to impair its survival during transmission from one host to the next. This project
specifically leverages Mtb's exclusive evolutionary history in humans as both host and only known reservoir,
which has made transmission not only an essential feature of its pathogenicity but intrinsic phase of its life
cycle that is essential for its survival as a species. Despite its erratic and seemingly heterogeneous nature, all
transmission events involve a number of transitions, such as changes in gas composition and desiccation
stress, that are comparatively invariant and highly repetitive in nature. We hypothesize that these changes
have resulted in the evolutionary selection of specific and adaptive metabolic responses in Mtb that have
equipped it to predictably complete this essential but erratic phase of its life cycle, inhibition of which might
slow or prevent its spread. This project builds on preliminary data which have identified several such
responses and, in collaboration with other Projects and Cores in this Program Project, will now test their
essentiality for survival in a series of in vitro and animal models of aerosol transmission, and clinical relevance
as reported by clinical Mtb isolates recovered from epidemiologically defined settings and inferred levels of
transmissibility.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10190650
- **Project number:** 1P01AI159402-01
- **Recipient organization:** WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV
- **Principal Investigator:** Kyu Y Rhee
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $792,016
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-05-13 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10190650

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10190650, Project 2: Essential metabolic objectives of M. tuberculosis aerobiology (1P01AI159402-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10190650. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*