Rate My Professor Kurt Krause

Kurt Krause is Chair in Biochemistry and Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Otago, where he also serves as Associate Dean (Medical Education) in the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences. A clinical specialist in infectious diseases, he earned a chemistry degree summa cum laude from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, an MD cum laude from Baylor College of Medicine, and MA and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1983 and 1986, respectively, under Nobel laureate William N. Lipscomb, Jr. After postdoctoral research at Harvard, he completed fellowships in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. He held faculty positions at the University of Houston and Baylor College of Medicine, and served as attending physician at major Houston hospitals including Ben Taub General Hospital, The Methodist Hospital, and St. Luke’s Hospital, prior to relocating to New Zealand in 2006. Krause founded and directed the Webster Centre for Infectious Diseases from 2013 to 2021.

His research centers on the structural biology of proteins critical to infectious diseases, encompassing bacterial pathogenesis factors, antibiotic resistance targets—particularly in tuberculosis—viral immunomodulatory proteins, and bioluminescence-associated proteins such as those in New Zealand glowworms. Key contributions include structural studies enabling vaccine and therapeutic development for pathogens like norovirus, coronavirus, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Recent publications feature "Broad-spectrum peptidomimetic inhibitors of norovirus and coronavirus 3C-like proteases" (Brimble et al., 2026, ACS Infectious Diseases), "Advancing the antituberculosis activity of nitropicolinic acids and amides" (Thompson et al., 2025, European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry), "Activity and cryo-EM structure of the polymerase domain of the human norovirus ProPol precursor" (McSweeney et al., 2024, Journal of Virology), "Dual transcriptional inhibition of glutamate and alanine racemase is synergistic in Mycobacterium tuberculosis" (McNeil et al., 2024, Microbiology), and "Targeting tuberculosis: Novel scaffolds for inhibiting cytochrome bd oxidase" (Seitz et al., 2024, Journal of Chemical Information & Modeling). He has secured funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Catalyst Fund (2017) and Health Research Council Programme Grants for tuberculosis research (2023).