Kurepina Lab
Natalia Kurepina, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Member at the Center for Discovery and Innovation.
Dr. Natalia Kurepina earned her Ph.D in Genetics from the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Russia. She studied genetic determinants for the synthesis of microcins, peptide antibiotics from enterobacteria. She completed her postdoctoral research on the genetics of toxic shock syndrome toxins in Staphyloccocus aureus from Skirball Institute, New York University.
Dr. Kurepina joined Dr. Barry Kreiswirth’s Lab in 1995 and participated in a clinical trial collaborating with the pharmaceutical company “Pathogenesis. Since then, she has been actively involved in numerous scientific projects performed in collaboration with major pharmaceutical companies like Otsuka, Merck, Veratorx, Cubist and Omniome and with TB Alliance (non-profit organization).
Dr. Kurepina’s significant skills in the field of infectious disease helped develop novel bacterial treatment approaches, including anti-bacterial drugs and compounds affecting immune system. In particular, Dr. Kurepina performed in vitro testing of anti-bacterial activity of prospective compounds and analysis of their activity ex vivo (infection of THP1 cell culture followed by drug treatment). The tested bacteria belong to drug-susceptible, MDR and XDR Mycobacterium tuberculosis, MRSA, Klebsiella spp. and other gram-negative and gram-positive (including non-tuberculous mycobacteria) organisms.
Recently, Dr. Kurepina research has focused on the phylogenetic relationship between clinical strains of M. tuberculosis and the evolution of drug resistance and virulence factors. She has analyzed whole genome sequences of over 240 M. tuberculosis clinical strains, studying the correlation between drug susceptibility (including newly developed anti-TB compounds) and mutations in chromosomal genes.
Dr. Kurepina’s work in infectious disease directly benefits the medical research community and also benefits public health issues within the US. She has co-authored 63 scientific publications and presented her work at numerous scientific meetings and conferences. Her research has greatly contributed to the positive developments in Tuberculosis detection and treatment, placing her research contributions on the national, as well as global, agenda.
Read our interview with Dr. Kurepina.
Recent Publications
Howard NC, Marin ND, Ahmed M, Rosa BA, Martin J, Bambouskova M, Sergushichev A, Loginicheva E, Kurepina N, Rangel-Moreno J, Chen L, Kreiswirth BN, Klein RS, Balada-Llasat JM, Torrelles JB, Amarasinghe GK, Mitreva M, Artyomov MN, Hsu FF, Mathema B, Khader SA. Mycobacterium tuberculosis carrying a rifampicin drug resistance mutation reprograms macrophage metabolism through cell wall lipid changes. Nat Microbiol. 2018 Nov;3(11):1327. doi: 10.1038/s41564-018-0245-0. PMID: 30224802
Howard NC, Marin ND, Ahmed M, Rosa BA, Martin J, Bambouskova M, Sergushichev A, Loginicheva E, Kurepina N, Rangel-Moreno J, Chen L, Kreiswirth BN, Klein RS, Balada-Llasat JM, Torrelles JB, Amarasinghe GK, Mitreva M, Artyomov MN, Hsu FF, Mathema B, Khader SA. Publisher Correction: Mycobacterium tuberculosis carrying a rifampicin drug resistance mutation reprograms macrophage metabolism through cell wall lipid changes. Nat Microbiol. 2018 Nov;3(11):1327. doi: 10.1038/s41564-018-0281-9. PMID: 30327492
Vickers CF, Silva APG, Chakraborty A, Fernandez P, Kurepina N, Saville C, Naranjo Y, Pons M, Schnettger LS, Gutierrez MG, Park S, Kreiswith BN, Perlin DS, Thomas EJ, Cavet JS, Tabernero L. Structure-Based Design of MptpB Inhibitors That Reduce Multidrug-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Survival and Infection Burden in Vivo. J Med Chem. 2018 Sep 27;61(18):8337-8352. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.8b00832. Epub 2018 Sep 10. PMID: 30153005
Thain N, Le C, Crossa A, Ahuja SD, Meissner JS, Mathema B, Kreiswirth B, Kurepina N, Cohen T, Chindelevitch L. Towards better prediction of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineages from MIRU-VNTR data. Infect Genet Evol. 2018 Jun 28. pii: S1567-1348(18)30441-6. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2018.06.029. PMID: 29960078
Cheng CY, Gutierrez NM, Marzuki MB, Lu X, Foreman TW, Paleja B, Lee B, Balachander A, Chen J, Tsenova L, Kurepina N, Teng KWW, West K, Mehra S, Zolezzi F, Poidinger M, Kreiswirth B, Kaushal D, Kornfeld H, Newell EW, Singhal A. Host sirtuin 1 regulates mycobacterial immunopathogenesis and represents a therapeutic target against tuberculosis. Sci Immunol. 2017 Mar;2(9). pii: eaaj1789. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.aaj1789. Epub 2017 Mar 24. PMID: 28707004
Singh SB, Xu L, Meinke PT, Kurepina N, Kreiswirth BN, Olsen DB, Young K. Thiazomycin, nocathiacin and analogs show strong activity against clinical strains of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J Antibiot (Tokyo). 2017 May;70(5):671-674. PubMed PMID: 28096545.