After 80 years, a new live vaccine against tuberculosis enters clinical trials this week. The new vaccine, VPM1002, is based on a vaccine that has been in use since 1921, and has been genetically engineered to prevent infection with tuberculosis bacteria much more effectively than its predecessor.

"The BCG tuberculosis vaccine, which was developed by French researchers, is the most frequently administered live vaccine in the world," says Kaufmann. However, BCG (short for the bacterium Bacillus Calmette-Guérind) is now frequently ineffective. The immunologist continues: "BCG has become a blunt weapon. We wanted to use genetic engineering to sharpen it so that, rather than hiding from the human immune system, it would stimulate it as much as possible."

"The vaccine bacteria are taken up by the scavenger cells of the human immune system and end up in their digestion chambers. The genetically engineered modification allows them to escape from the chambers and arm the immune system against the tuberculosis pathogens."

The new vaccine has been developed at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. In 2004, the vaccine was licensed to the Hanover-based VPN, which expedited the clinical study.

Photo: Mycobakterium tuberculosis, Credit: Brinkmann/Schaible, MPI for Infection Biology