Tuberculosis Research

Dr. Eric Rubin

Dr. Rubin's laboratory has developed new tools for studying Mycobacterium tuberculosis and related mycobacterial in an effort to identify genes required for growth, survival, and virulence. His work takes advantage of the recent sequencing of the M. tuberculosis genome to systematically analyze genes to determine their importance in disease using transposon mutagenesis and DNA microarrays. He hopes to use these genes to develop new methods of producing attenuated strains of M. tuberculosis both for use as vaccines and as screening strains for new antibiotics.