The "Grand Challenge" Project which is supported by 13 Mio US$ over 5 years aims at understanding which immune responses provide protection against tuberculosis. The goal is to identify biomarkers required for design and clinical testing of novel vaccines which protect people with latent infection from developing tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is a major health problem globally, and especially in low-income countries. Each year more than 8 million people develop disease, and another 2 million die. It is estimated that one third of the global population is latently infected with the tubercle bacillus. With progressive HIV-1 co-infection, the risk of tuberculosis increases dramatically. In Africa, HIV-1 has become the single, most important factor determining the increased incidence of tuberculosis.
Despite effective drug-treatment strategies for tuberculosis patients and the widespread use of the available vaccine Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) in infants, the enormous reservoir of latent tuberculosis that keeps perpetuating the epidemic has not come under control. A novel vaccine is expected to become the most cost-effective measure of tuberculosis control and will ideally complement current drug-treatment strategies.
The major roadblock in the development of new tuberculosis vaccines is the lack of understanding what constitutes protective immunity. Insights into the mechanisms of protection and disease progression will lead to the definition of biomarkers that can predict, whether a new tuberculosis vaccine will be effective.
The Project Consortium will apply sophisticated molecular and immunological tools to study immune responses against the tubercle bacillus during natural infection in endemic populations in Africa, the impact of progressive HIV-1 infection and its treatment and changes during vaccination with BCG and novel vaccine candidates.
The Project Consortium consists of 15 laboratories in Africa, the USA and Europe (Germany, The Netherlands, UK and Denmark) and will concentrate its work in 5 different tuberculosis endemic countries across the African continent (The Gambia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi, and The Republic of South Africa). The participating researchers have a long-standing experience and infrastructure to carry out the required studies. This Consortium thus combines multiple scientific disciplines including clinical sciences, epidemiology, microbiology, genomics, as well as molecular and cellular immunology.