Designing self-destructing bacteria make effective tuberculosis vaccines: Study

Working towards more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccinations, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed two strains of mycobacteria with "kill switches" that may be activated to stop the bacteria after they elicit an immune response. Two preclinical research addresses the difficulty of designing bacteria that are safe for use in controlled human infection trials or as improved vaccinations. While tuberculosis is under control in most developed nations, the illness still kills over a million people each year worldwide.

Spreading easily through the air, Mycobacterium tuberculosis can establish a chronic infection in human lungs, which can turn into a deadly respiratory disease. A safe vaccine called BCG, consisting of a weakened strain of the closely related Mycobacterium bovis, has been available for over a century but has limited efficacy.

"BCG protects children from tuberculosis meningitis, but it doesn't effectively protect adults from pulmonary tuberculosis, which is why it's only used in high-incidence countries," said Dr. Dirk Schnappinger, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior author on both of the new studies.