- Burnett School College of Medicine Faculty News Infectious Disease Division
Researchers at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences are looking to the sea to find answers on better treatments for tuberculosis, and their work is gaining national attention. Assistant Professor Dr. Kyle Rohde, and doctoral student Carolina Rodriguez Felix were featured during CBS This Morning’s Morning Rounds health segment for their work in identifying marine compounds that have showed antibacterial activity against tuberculosis.
Testing various chemical extracts from sea sponges and other marine life, Dr. Rohde’s team identified 26 compounds that were active against replicating tuberculosis bacteria, 19 killed dormant bacteria and seven that were active against both.
The research team was also featured by local CBS-affiliated television station WKMG News 6, who visited Dr. Rhode’s lab at UCF’s Health Sciences Campus in Lake Nona.
“Whether or not these hits that we have right now are the next wonder drug, we don’t know yet,” Dr. Rohde told the News 6 Team. “And so we have other ongoing projects, including this one that we continue to look for new potential drugs.”
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published in June in the Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal, an American Society of Microbiology publication.