Publications by authors named "M Haks"

Article Synopsis
  • - Tuberculosis (TB) is a critical global health issue, and there's an urgent need for effective vaccines; CD8 T-cells, along with CD4 T-cells, are essential for fighting TB.
  • - The study investigates pH-sensitive liposomes as a delivery system for a multi-stage protein vaccine (Ag85b-ESAT6-Rv2034) against TB, aiming to enhance CD8 T-cell responses through improved antigen presentation.
  • - Results show that these liposomes are successfully taken up by immune cells and promote the activation of T-cells, indicating they could be promising candidates for developing effective TB vaccines.
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Zebrafish is a natural host of various species and a surrogate model organism for tuberculosis research. is evolutionarily one of the closest non-tuberculous species related to and shares the majority of virulence genes. Although zebrafish is not a natural host of the human pathogen, we have previously demonstrated successful robotic infection of zebrafish embryos with and performed drug treatment of the infected larvae.

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Unlabelled: () as well as nontuberculous mycobacteria are intracellular pathogens whose treatment is extensive and increasingly impaired due to the rise of mycobacterial drug resistance. The loss of antibiotic efficacy has raised interest in the identification of host-directed therapeutics (HDT) to develop novel treatment strategies for mycobacterial infections. In this study, we identified amiodarone as a potential HDT candidate that inhibited both intracellular and in primary human macrophages without directly impairing bacterial growth, thereby confirming that amiodarone acts in a host-mediated manner.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is still among the deadliest infectious diseases, hence there is a pressing need for more effective TB vaccines. Cationic liposome subunit vaccines are excellent vaccine candidates offering effective protection with a better safety profile than live vaccines. In this study, we aim to explore intrinsic adjuvant properties of cationic liposomes to maximize immune activation while minimizing aspecific cytotoxicity.

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Introduction: The rVSVDG-ZEBOV-GP (Ervebo®) vaccine is both immunogenic and protective against Ebola. However, the vaccine can cause a broad range of transient adverse reactions, from headache to arthritis. Identifying baseline reactogenicity signatures can advance personalized vaccinology and increase our understanding of the molecular factors associated with such adverse events.

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