Johns Hopkins Develops Nasal DNA Vaccine to Augment TB Treatment

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have created a therapeutic, intranasal DNA vaccine against tuberculosis by fusing RelMtb with Mip3α. When used with standard TB drug therapy, it strengthened lung and systemic immunity, sped bacterial clearance, reduced lung inflammation, and prevented relapse in mice, with durable immune responses observed in nonhuman primates, suggesting a path toward human trials and the potential to shorten TB treatment, including for drug-resistant strains.