A unique platform
that resulted in a promising HIV vaccine has also led to a new, highly
effective vaccine against tuberculosis that is moving toward testing in humans.
The new vaccine completely protected 41 percent and reduced overall TB
disease by 68 percent in vaccinated rhesus macaques, according to a study
published as an Advanced Online Publication of Nature Medicine.
In contrast, there was no measurable protection in the rhesus macaques -- a
monkey species that is closely related to humans -- treated with today's
standard TB vaccine, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine.
"With more than 1.7 million
people dying globally from TB each year and the rise of strains that are resistant to
drug treatment, we need a better way to prevent this disease," said the
study's principal investigator Louis Picker, M.D., who is the associate
director of the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute and a professor of
pathology, molecular microbiology, and immunology in the OHSU School of
Medicine.
"Because rhesus monkeys are
significantly more susceptible to TB than humans and, given how effective our
new TB
vaccine has been in these monkeys, we
feel that the human version of our vaccine could have the potential to be even
more effective in protecting humans," Picker said.
TB disease is caused by the
bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is spread through the air, and can lead to
violent cough attacks involving spitting up blood. Most people infected with TB
don't even know it; only five to 10 percent show symptoms. A vaccine already
exists, but it largely only protects children and its efficacy varies widely.
Picker and his colleagues have
taken a different approach to vaccination. They use a weakened form of a common Herpes virus --
cytomegalovirus, or CMV, which infects most people without causing disease. In
collaboration with the TB nonprofit Aeras, they wove tiny bits of a
disease-causing pathogen into the CMV. This re-engineered CMV creates and
maintains a high state of immunity against the pathogen in vaccinated monkeys.
This approach has the potential to work better than standard vaccines for
aggressive pathogens that infect quickly, overrun a person's immune
response, or can hide from the immune
system.
The new TB
vaccine reduced overall disease by 68 percent in vaccinated monkeys. About 41
percent of vaccinated monkeys were completely protected from TB, while 30
percent had less severe disease than unvaccinated monkeys, and another 30
percent showed no benefit from the vaccine. This level of protection has never
been seen before in rhesus macaques with the standard TB
vaccine.
Next, Picker and colleagues will
work to better define the biological mechanisms by which their new TB vaccine
works. They will also work with Vir Biotechnology, Inc. of San Francisco, which
has licensed aspects of their CMV-based
vaccine approach, to expand testing with
plans to start a human clinical trial in 2020.
Vir Biotechnology plans to
manufacture the HIV/AIDS vaccine, which is also made with CMV, in 2018 and a
human clinical trial is slated for 2019.
The success of both vaccines thus
far in stringent monkey models has led Picker and his colleagues to believe
their CMV-based approach to making vaccines has the potential to be engineered
to tackle a variety of infectious diseases.
Visit our website to know more
about the scientific sessions of the conference STD 2018: https://std-hiv-aids.cmesociety.com/call-for-abstracts
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