Subunit boost for TB vaccines

A long-term study in macaques by GlaxoSmithKline plcand collaborators bolsters the case for using a subunit tuberculosis vaccine to boost the effects of the only marketed TB prophylactic-bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG).¹ Ongoing Phase I and Phase II trials of the subunit vaccine, dubbed M72, should pave the way for future trials of a combined BCG prime and M72 boost regimen in infants and adults.

The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first evidence of long-term protection against TB in adult nonhuman primates. Although BCG does a good job of protecting infants from pulmonary TB, its effects do not carry over to adults. Nor does the vaccine stop transmission or latent survival of Mycobacterium tuberculosis...