A paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation details a promising therapeutic intranasal (nose-delivered) DNA vaccine against tuberculosis.
The vaccine “fuses two genes with the goal of directing the immune system to fight drug-tolerant bacterial ‘persisters’ that can survive prolonged antibiotic therapy and contribute to disease relapse.” WHO estimates that about one-quarter of the world’s population live with latent tuberculosis, and 1.2 million people died of the disease in 2024 alone.
WHO has called for “therapeutic vaccines that can be used alongside drug therapies to shorten TB treatment regimens and improve outcomes, particularly because long multidrug courses are difficult to complete, and drug-resistant TB strains continue to emerge.”
This new vaccine fuses two genes and is given through the nose “to take advantage of three beneficial biological activities.” Intranasal delivery specifically “focuses vaccination on the respiratory mucosa in the lungs where TB infection occurs, helping generate long-lasting localized T-cell immunity in the airways and lungs, along with systemic immune responses.” Investigators were aiming to strengthen immune activity directly in the respiratory tract.
In rhesus macaques, the vaccine “prompted measurable TB-focused immune responses in blood and in the airways.” The responses persisted for at least six months.
