by John P. Meyer

Dr. Gumbo's tuberculosis regimen could reduce treatment times from many months to just a few weeks.

Dr. Tawanda Gumbo, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, has been named by the National Institutes of Health as one of the inaugural recipients of their New Innovator Award. Two other Texas-based researchers - Dr. Pedro Fernandez-Funez of UT Medical Branch Galveston and Dr. Kjersti Aagaard-Tillery of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine - were named as fellow award recipients.

As a result of receiving the award, Dr. Gumbo - a native of Zimbabwe who joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2006 - will receive grant monies of $1.5 million over a five year period to bolster his research into drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, which kills more that two million people world-wide each year and is the leading cause of death among those infected with HIV/AIDS.

As expected, Dr. Gumbo was thrilled to receive the award: "It will allow me to actually do particular experiments that started with some techniques that I pioneered in the lab using the hollow fiber model of tuberculosis. The typical tuberculosis treatment takes many, many months; usually six months and nine months in some situations. Hopefully, we’ll reduce it to weeks.” Which of course could lead to the saving of many, many lives.

Carry on, Doctor G.