IDRI's TB vaccine protects against drug-resistant tuberculosis

The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) announces it has developed a new tuberculosis (TB) vaccine that protects against TB including drug-resistant strains of the disease in animal studies. The results of these studies are published in Science Translational Medicine today.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major global public health concern. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 9 million people are infected with TB, and close to half a million are resistant to multiple drugs that once effectively treated the disease. Two million people die of TB each year.

Though a childhood vaccine for tuberculosis, BCG, has been widely used for decades, its protection wanes over time, and new virulent forms of the disease are spreading. Control activities are limited without new vaccines, immunotherapeutics, and drugs to protect against these killer strains of TB.

IDRI's TB vaccine enhances and extends BCG and protects against drug-resistant strains through its unique combination of a molecule containing four tuberculosis proteins with a synthetic adjuvant, also developed at IDRI.

Dr. Rhea Coler, Vice President of Preclinical Biology and one of the study's Principal Investigators, explains, "Combining proteins in a vaccine is important because tuberculosis bacilli are variable, and no single protein will be effective against all strains."  In addition, because of human genetic diversity, individuals will respond differently to different proteins. A combination of proteins, such as exist in natural tuberculosis bacteria, increases the vaccine's efficacy.

The vaccine is now being developed for clinical testing in humans.