(Press-News.org) Hamilton, ON (Oct. 2, 2013) -- A tuberculosis vaccine developed at McMaster University offers new hopes for the global fight against tuberculosis.
"We are the first to have developed such a vaccine for tuberculosis," said Dr. Fiona Smaill, professor and chair of the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster. She led the phase one clinical study published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The vaccine, based on a genetically modified cold virus, was developed in the lab of Zhou Xing, professor of pathology and molecular medicine and the McMaster Immunology Research Centre, who co-led the phase one study. Both are also members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
"Tuberculosis is a serious public health threat," Smaill said. "One-third of world's population is infected with the organism that causes tuberculosis, and it remains the top infectious killer of people only secondary to HIV; yet, the current vaccine used to prevent it is ineffective."
The control of tuberculosis (TB) has met with further challenge from high incidence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, she added.
The new vaccine was developed to act as a booster to Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG), currently the only TB vaccine available. BCG was developed in the 1920s and has been used worldwide. The new "booster" would reactivate immune elements that over time diminish following BCG vaccination.
Currently the BCG vaccine is part of the World Health Organization's immunization program in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America, as well as Nunavut, the only Canadian jurisdiction where the BCG vaccine is routinely given because of the high rate of tuberculosis in the territory. It is typically given in the first year of life.
The McMaster vaccine has been more than a decade in the making. McMaster researchers began the first human clinical trial in 2009 with 24 healthy human volunteers, including 12 who were previously BCG-immunized.
"The primary goal was to look at the safety of a single dose vaccine injection," said Xing, "as well as its potency to engage the immune system."
By 2012 they established that the vaccine was safe and observed a robust immune response in most trial participants. More clinical trials are needed to measure the vaccine's real potential, Xing added.
Smaill added: "As a doctor who looks after patients who have tuberculosis, including those who are HIV infected, I realize how important it is going to be to control this infection with a good vaccine.
"We are probably one of a few groups in the world who are actually doing bench-to-human tuberculosis vaccine work, and we are excited to be part of this and thrilled that it started at McMaster."
###
The development of the McMaster vaccine was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, World Health Organization, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, McMaster University, and the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
For further information:
Veronica McGuire
Media Relations
Faculty of Health Sciences
McMaster University
905-525-9140, ext. 22169
vmcguir@mcmaster.ca
McMaster lab develops new tuberculosis vaccine
2013-10-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
In spectrum of ACL injury treatment, new study reveals cost savings for those who need surgery
2013-10-03
Rosemont, Ill – In late summer and early fall when youth and college sports begin, it's a similar refrain: a star on the varsity basketball team tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and is out for the season after surgery. A college football game stopped as a defensive safety hobbles off the field with an ACL injury. Annually in the U.S., more than 200,000 ACL injuries are reported, often by active young adult and adolescent athletes, though they can occur at any age. Depending on the severity of the injury, treatment may include rehabilitation or surgery and rehabilitation, ...
Specialized intestinal cells cause some cases of Crohn's disease
2013-10-03
Scientists have discovered that Crohn's disease, the inflammatory bowel disorder, can originate from specialised intestinal cell type called Paneth cells. As such, they propose that small intestinal Crohn's disease might be a specific disorder of this cell type, providing a possible new target for treatments. The study, by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, was published today in the journal Nature.
"If we are able to break down Crohn's disease into subsets by understanding the underlying mechanisms, which we have done here, we hope to ...
Red wine chemical remains effective against cancer after the body converts it
2013-10-03
A chemical found in red wine remains effective at fighting cancer even after the body's metabolism has converted it into other compounds.
This is an important finding in a new paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine by Cancer Research UK-funded researchers at the University of Leicester's Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine.
The paper reveals that resveratrol – a compound extracted from the skins of red grapes – is not rendered ineffective once it is metabolised by the body.
This is an important development, as resveratrol is ...
Tears for fears
2013-10-03
Nocturnal animals need their noses to stay alive. Mice, among others, depend on their impressive olfactory powers to sniff out food or avoid danger in the dark.
Hard-wired to flee a predator or fight a mating rival in response to a whiff of urine, mice use a streamlined system that sends the sensory cue to neural centers in the brain that need only a few synapses to rapidly initiate the instinctive behavior. By comparison, the visual system on which humans rely to sense a threat must process many more variables, detecting the edges and colors and contrast of that looming ...
Longline fishery in Costa Rica kills thousands of sea turtles and sharks
2013-10-03
PHLADELPHIA (October 2, 2013)—The second-most-common catch on Costa Rica's longline fisheries in the last decade was not a commercial fish species. It was olive ridley sea turtles. These lines also caught more green turtles than most species of fish.
These findings and more, reported in a new study in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, indicate that the Costa Rican longline fishery represents a major threat to the survival of eastern Pacific populations of sea turtles as well as sharks.
The researchers argue that time and area closures for the fisheries ...
October GSA Today: Earth upon Impact
2013-10-03
Boulder, Colorado, USA – In the October issue of GSA Today, Grant Young of the University of Western Ontario discusses the possible causes of the numerous glaciations that characterized the Neoproterozoic and concludes that a dramatic shift in Earth's climate may have occurred during the Ediacaran, in part due to a large marine impact. According to Young, this shift separates Proterozoic glaciations, which were likely triggered by the effect of supercontinent assembly and breakup on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Young notes that this suggests strong seasonality ...
Fear of predators drives honey bees away from good food sources
2013-10-03
Most of us think of honey bees as having a bucolic, pastoral existence—flying from flower to flower to collect the nectar they then turn into honey. But while they're capable of defending themselves with their painful stings, honey bees live in a world filled with danger in which predators seize them from the sky and wait to ambush them on flowers.
Such fear drives bees to avoid food sources closely associated with predators and, interestingly, makes colonies of bees less risk-tolerant than individual bees, according to a study published in this week's issue of the open-access ...
Computer scientists develop new approach to sort cells up to 38 times faster
2013-10-03
A team of engineers led by computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a new approach that marries computer vision and hardware optimization to sort cells up to 38 times faster than is currently possible. The approach could be used for clinical diagnostics, stem cell characterization and other applications.
The approach improves on a technique known as imaging flow cytometry, which uses a camera mounted on a microscope to capture the morphological features of hundreds to thousands of cells per second while the cells are suspended in a ...
Scripps Florida scientists shed light on body's master energy regulator
2013-10-03
JUPITER, FL – October 2, 2013 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered some key features that explain just what turns on a protein that is considered to be a master regulator of how the human body uses and stores energy.
The new discoveries could help in the design and development of new therapeutics to treat metabolic disease such as diabetes and obesity—and perhaps some cancers as well.
The new study, led by Patrick R. Griffin, chair of the TSRI Department of Molecular Therapeutics, was published recently online ...
Death of a spruce tree
2013-10-03
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Examining a long-lived forest, researchers have found that Black Spruce trees, which dominate the northern forests of North America, succumb about five years after being weakened by environmental stresses. Without rejuvenating fire, the dead trees aren't being replaced by new ones. The result will help researchers better understand how climate change affects the health of forests, and how forests affect the severity of climate change. The study also suggests trees might be storing more carbon than currently estimated.
"The take away from this is that ...