Development of novel vaccine candidates to prevent primary or reactivated tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is among the major infectious pathogens in the world, and has a considerable impact on children and adults of disease endemic countries. Increasing spread of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and the general failure of the BCG v accine, have made vaccine development against tuberculosis a high priority. There are now several tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidates under development. This consortium intends to design an improved vaccine based on the following assets: 1) Recent discov eries by proteomics of many exported proteins that could represent novel and excellent target antigens. 2) Investigation of proprietary vaccibodies that represent novel DNA-based vaccines designed to target the antigen presenting cell for delivery of myco bacterial antigens. 3) An acute disease model that will provide rapid feedback when screening vaccine candidates. 4) Disease models for progressive and latent tuberculosis to measure protective responses in already infected animals.