Vaccine Development and Immune Responses in Tuberculosis

Dear Colleagues,

Interest in the development of an effective TB has experienced an extraordinary growth in the last 20 years. Despite the numerous proposals that have emerged through these efforts, however, we have sadly seen limited success. Indeed, though several pivotal efficacy trials have begun, leading to a few victories, it appears that this field is in dire need of new approaches, a so-called “pink swan”—a term coined in the field five years ago—in order to find a definitive champion which is able to substitute the old BCG. This means that the design of new strategies should be able to integrate the newest knowledge in the natural history of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and the latest vaccine design approaches in fields beyond infectious diseases. This is why we invite authors to submit proposals with “out of the box” strategies, to try to solve at least one of the following questions:

1. What are the experimental models that will better discern promising candidates, including “in silico” modeling?
2. What is worthy of stimulation? Which lymphocyte subtypes? Cellular? Humoral? Innate or trained immunity?
3. Do we need different vaccines for different phases of the infection? Can active TB be treated with vaccines?
4. Is it possible to find a reliable surrogate of protection? 
5. How should the memory immunity of these vaccines be? Should we design a vaccine for different ages?
6. How we can address the vaccination of immunodepressed people? Is it possible to do so?
7. What are the new vaccine design technologies worthy of assay and why?

Dr. Pere-Joan Cardona
Dr. Petros C. Karakousis
Dr. Rasmus S. Mortensen
Guest Editors

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• Animal models
• “In silico” modeling
• Antibody response
• Th1/Th2/Th17/Treg response
• Trained immunity
• Mucosal immunity
• Adjuvants
• Vaccine design
• Biomarkers
• surrogate of protection
• Target population