Novel tuberculosis vaccination strategies based on understanding the immune response

Kaufmann SHE (Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany). Novel tuberculosis vaccination strategies based on understanding the immune response (Foresight). J Intern Med 2010; 267: 337-353. The current tuberculosis (TB) vaccine bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) fails to protect against adult pulmonary TB. Yet, its capacity to control miliary TB in newborn infants forms the basis for development of novel vaccine candidates. These either exploit genetic modification of BCG to create a viable replacement vaccine or use BCG to prime the immune response followed by boost with a novel subunit vaccine. This could ultimately result in a combination vaccination schedule comprising a prime with a live BCG replacement followed by a subunit vaccine boost. Ultimately, vaccination strategies that achieve sterile eradication of, or prevent infection with, tubercle bacilli would be an ambitious highly promising goal.