Tuberculosis vaccine
29 Apr, 2010
Tuberculosis is caused by a lethal bacterium killing nearly 2 million people yearly and infecting 8 million. Research into this disease and an effective vaccine is critically important.
Listen to audio: Tuberculosis vaccine
Duration: 12:57
100 years since a vaccine was developed to treat the serious lung disease tuberculosis (TB), it protects only a proportion of the population. TB causes weight loss, night sweats and coughing (sometimes producing blood). It’s contracted by inhaling airborne bacteria.
At the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, scientists are trying to understand which facet of the bacterium in a vaccine causes an immune response. The team is presently taking several approaches, the first of which is looking at DNA vaccination.
As its name implies, DNA circles containing marker proteins from the TB bacterium are injected into someone causing the proteins coded for expression in human cells. This doesn’t produce genetically modified (GM) cells but ‘excites’ cells that normal protein vaccines won’t.
Another approach is to look at rational vaccine design where researchers are developing an understanding of TB and how immune cells respond to this disease.
This programme celebrates World Immunology Day, and researcher Jo Kirman explains the technicalities of vaccine development as well as giving the listener an insight into the world of the CT4 T cells that are needed in the lungs to help fight TB.
Programme details: Our Changing World
