Copyright indiatimes
Global Desk TB remains to claim more than one million lives annually, hitting hardest in low-income countries where access to advanced antibiotics continues to be scarce or inaccessible. The bacteria’s evolving resistance to available treatments has made respiratory infections the main reason for infectious deaths globally. Currently, scientists may be nearing the development of a latest vaccine to fight against tuberculosis (TB), one of the world's deadliest illnesses.Long Road Since the BCG VaccineOver a century ago, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine significantly minimized TB cases in the U.S., from almost 80,000 each year to just a few hundred within decades. Though still used widely, BCG’s protection is strongest in children and tends to reduce in adulthood, mainly in countries with elevated TB cases.Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are in the phase of creating a next-generation vaccine that targets proteins produced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria responsible for TB.Modern Approach to an Ancient ThreatThe MIT group exposed human phagocytes, white blood cells that defend the body by engulfing harmful microbes, with M. tuberculosis. From there, they extracted MHC-II proteins from the cell surfaces and found short chains of amino acids, or peptides, that bind tightly to them.Their findings disclosed that 24 peptides are capable of triggering an immune response from T cells, which aids the body detect and destroy infected cells. Although no single peptide activated T cells in each test, scientists believe that a combination vaccine that has many of these peptides could offer strong, broad protection for most individuals.Live EventsBryan Bryson, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT and a member of the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham in Boston, stated:"There's still a huge TB burden globally that we'd like to make an impact on.""What we've tried to do in this initial TB vaccine is focus on antigens that we saw frequently in our screen and also appear to stimulate a response in T cells from people with prior TB infection."Changing Face of TuberculosisWhile TB currently impacts only a few thousand Americans each year causing nearly 500 deaths—it continues to be devastating in developing nations, where it kills roughly 1.2 million people annually.In the U.S., TB rates reduced constantly from 1993 until 2020, when they struck an all-time low of 7,170 cases. But following the pandemic, cases started climbing again, being 10,347 in 2024, an 8% rise from the year before and the highest since 2011. The demographics of TB have also changed. Since 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has cited that more cases among non-U.S.-born residents than those born domestically, indicating that global travel and migration has a significant role in transmission trends.Why Developing a New Vaccine Is So DifficultGlobally, TB prevention still depends on the BCG vaccine, launched in 1921. Since then, no fresh vaccines have received approval. One reason is the sheer complexity of M. tuberculosis, which offers over 4,000 proteins—making it riskier to determine which ones give a powerful immune response.Bryson described:"Instead of looking at all of those 4,000 TB proteins, we wanted to ask which of those proteins actually end up being displayed to the rest of the immune system via MHC proteins.""If we could answer that question, then we could design vaccines to match that."Inside the MIT StudyIn research published this week in Science Translational Medicine, MIT scientists infected human phagocytes with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and then extracted MHC-peptide complexes—structures that aids present fragments of TB proteins to T cells, prompting the immune system to respond.The team found 27 peptides from 13 TB proteins that seemed to be most common, and when exposed to T cells from individuals earlier infected with TB, 24 of those peptides produced a measurable immune response.However, Bryson cited that:"In a perfect world, if you were designing a vaccine, you would pick one protein that is presented across every donor.""It should work for everyone. However, using our measurements, we've not yet found a TB protein that covers every donor we've analyzed so far."FAQs:1. What is tuberculosis (TB)? Tuberculosis is a contagious bacterial infection that mainly impacts the lungs. 2. Why is TB considered so deadly? TB kills more than a million people each year, mainly in developing regions with limited healthcare.Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel) Read More News ontuberculosis vaccineTB vaccine developmentMycobacterium tuberculosisBCG vaccinetuberculosis statisticsinfectious diseasesMIT researchtuberculosistuberculosis treatmenttuberculosis symptoms and treatment (Catch all the US News, UK News, Canada News, International Breaking News Events, and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily International News Updates....moreless (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)Read More News ontuberculosis vaccineTB vaccine developmentMycobacterium tuberculosisBCG vaccinetuberculosis statisticsinfectious diseasesMIT researchtuberculosistuberculosis treatmenttuberculosis symptoms and treatment(Catch all the US News, UK News, Canada News, International Breaking News Events, and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily International News Updates....moreless
