Advances in development of new tuberculosis vaccines.

Purpose Of Review: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global public health emergency and caused 1.6 million deaths in 2021. The aim of this review is to provide recent updates on advances in TB vaccine development for prevention and adjunct therapy.

Reconstructing radial stem size changes of trees with machine learning.

Like many scientists, ecologists depend heavily on continuous uninterrupted data in order to understand better the object of their study. Although this might be straightforward to achieve under controlled laboratory conditions, the situation is easily complicated under field conditions where sensors and data transmission are affected by harsh weather, living organisms, changes in atmospheric conditions etc. This often results in parts of the data being corrupted or missing altogether.

The TB vaccine development pathway - An innovative approach to accelerating global TB vaccine development.

Two proof of concept clinical trials with TB vaccines demonstrate that new approaches can prevent sustained TB infection in adolescents (BCG revaccination) and TB disease in adults (M72/ASO1) (Nemes et al., 2018; Tait et al., 2019) [1,2].

A Randomized Dose-Escalating Phase I Trial of a Replication-Deficient Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus Vector-Based Vaccine Against Human Cytomegalovirus.

Background: A vaccine (HB-101) consisting of 2 nonreplicating lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) vectors expressing the human cytomegalovirus antigens glycoprotein B (gB) and the 65-kD phosphoprotein (pp65), respectively, is in development to prevent cytomegalovirus infection.

Methods: HB-101 was tested in cytomegalovirus-naive, healthy adults in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-escalation Phase I trial. Fifty-four subjects received low, medium, or high dose of HB-101 or placebo by intramuscular administration at Month 0, 1, and 3.

Preferred product characteristics for therapeutic vaccines to improve tuberculosis treatment outcomes: Key considerations from World Health Organization consultations.

Treating tuberculosis (TB) requires a multidrug course of treatment lasting 6 months, or longer for drug-resistant TB, which is difficult to complete and often not well tolerated. Treatment failure and recurrence after end-of-treatment can have devastating consequences, including progressive debilitation, death, the transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis - the infectious agent responsible for causing TB - to others, and may be associated with the development of drug-resistant TB. The burden on health systems is important, with severe economic consequences.

Points for Consideration for dengue vaccine introduction - recommendations by the Dengue Vaccine Initiative.

Dengue is a public health problem in the tropics and subtropics. There are several vaccine candidates in clinical development. However, there may be gaps in the new vaccine introduction after vaccine licensure before it becomes available in developing countries.

Efficacy of a monovalent human-bovine (116E) rotavirus vaccine in Indian children in the second year of life.

Unlabelled: Rotavirus gastroenteritis is one of the leading causes of diarrhea in Indian children less than 2 years of age. The 116E rotavirus strain was developed as part of the Indo-US Vaccine Action Program and has undergone efficacy trials. This paper reports the efficacy and additional safety data in children up to 2 years of age.

Efficacy of a monovalent human-bovine (116E) rotavirus vaccine in Indian infants: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe dehydrating gastroenteritis in developing countries. Safe, effective, and affordable rotavirus vaccines are needed in these countries. We aimed to assess the efficacy and tolerability of a monovalent human-bovine rotavirus vaccine for severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in low-resource urban and rural settings in India.

The second Geneva Consensus: Recommendations for novel live TB vaccines.

Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis continues to be a major public health burden in most developing parts of the world and efforts to develop effective strategies for containing the disease remain a priority. It has long been evident that effective mass vaccination programmes are a cost effective and efficient approach to controlling communicable diseases in a public health setting and tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a major target. One approach with increasing acceptance is based upon on live mycobacterial vaccines, either as recombinant BCG or rationally attenuated M.

[Case report: congenital adrenal hyperplasia and ambiguous genitalia due to 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency].

3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency is a disorder of steroid biosynthesis resulting in decreased production of all 3 groups of adrenal steroids. The symptomatology includes congenital adrenal hyperplasia disorders and ambiguous genitalia in 46, XY males. 3beta-HSD deficiency is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder.

Efficacy and safety studies of a recombinant chimeric respiratory syncytial virus FG glycoprotein vaccine in cotton rats.

Several formulations of a recombinant chimeric respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine consisting of the extramembrane domains of the F and G glycoproteins (FG) were tested in cotton rats to evaluate efficacy and safety. The FG vaccine was highly immunogenic, providing nearly complete resistance to pulmonary infection at doses as low as 25 ng in spite of inducing relatively low levels of serum neutralizing antibody at low vaccine doses. Upon RSV challenge animals primed with FG vaccine showed quite mild alveolitis and interstitial pneumonitis, which were eliminated by the addition of monophosphoryl lipid A to the formulation.

High-dose growth hormone treatment of short children born small for gestational age.

The effect of GH administration was evaluated over 2 yr in 50 short, prepubertal, non-GH deficient children born small for gestational age, who had been randomly allocated to a group receiving no treatment or daily sc GH treatment at a dose of 0.2 or 0.3 IU/kg.

[Pulmonary carcinomatous lymphangitis and renal adenocarcinoma].

The case of a 7 year-old who presented with lymphangitic carcinomatosis revealed by lung biopsy and secondary to renal adenocarcinoma is described. This biopsy was performed because of radiologic and clinical signs associating bilateral interstitial infiltrates, mediastinal adenopathy and gradually increasing respiratory distress. Despite treatment, the child died two weeks later.

Cloning of DNA sequences encoding foreign peptides and their expression in the K88 pili.

A genetic system that allows the cloning of a peptide-coding sequence in the Escherichia coli K88ac and K88ad pilin genes and their expression as recombinant pili has been constructed. Two insertion vectors were created by subcloning the pilin genes in a pBR322 plasmid and replacing the coding sequence of two nonconserved clusters by a linker. The K88ac helper genes were subcloned in the compatible pACYC184 plasmid, and expression of pili by bacteria carrying both plasmids occurred by complementation.