How Can We Improve the Existing Vaccine for Tuberculosis to Combat the Growing Number of Multi-Resistant Strains?

Stefan H. E. Kaufmann

Each year 1.5 million people die of tuberculosis thus making it the number one killer of all contagious diseases. With the number of multi-resistant tuberculosis growing, currently available treatments are no longer as effective as they used to be. The existing vaccine does not protect against pulmonary tuberculosis which is the most common form of the disease and easily transmittable. In this video, STEFAN H. E. KAUFMANN describes how this existing vaccine was modified to trigger an additional component of the cellular immune response. The researchers showed that it achieved profound reduction of bacterial load in the lung and an excellent safety profile in preclinical studies. The vaccine candidate is currently undergoing clinical trials to be approved for humans.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10207

Researcher

Stefan H.E. Kaufmann is a Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, and Professor for Microbiology and Immunology at the Charité University Clinics, Berlin. Kaufmann used to be the president of the German Society for Immunology and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. As a leading researcher in the field of immunology, Kaufmann identifies tuberculosis as a continued health threat and explores how to make tuberculosis treatments more affordable and effective in the face of multi-resistant tuberculosis.

Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

The Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology focuses on understanding how microbes cause disease and how hosts respond to this challenge. Its mission is to understand infections by viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi and worms of two reasons: they present one of the most significant medical burdens on earth and the interaction between microbes and their host are an essential driver of evolution. To find answers to the fundamental questions of infection biology, the MPIIB brings together scientists from various disciplines. Hence the scale of the MPIIB research spans through the atomic, molecular, cellular, tissular, organismal, clinical and finally social level. The Institute is located at the historical Campus of the Charité Clinic in the heart of Berlin.

How Can We Improve the Existing Vaccine for Tuberculosis to Combat the Growing Number of Multi-Resistant Strains?

Researcher

Original Publication

Increased Vaccine Efficacy Against Tuberculosis of Recombinant Mycobacterium Bovis Bacille Calmette-Guerin Mutants that Secrete Listeriolysin

Leander Grode

Peter Seiler

Sven Baumann

Jürgen Hess

Volker Brinkmann