Roadmap for the development of candidate vaccine for bTB

What are we trying to achieve and why? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

Pathogens manipulate the immune responses of the host in an attempt to survive. Establishing how M bovis manipulates the host’s immune response will allow these factors to be removed and thus allow the hosts immune system to react to the organism in a different way, possibly enhancing protection

What are the scientific and technological challenges
(knowledge gaps needing to be addressed)?

Identifying deleterious immunomodulatory factors from ones that would appear to be beneficial. Mycobacterial appear to drive responses in a Th1 direction so it is essential to establish how this benefits the organism.

What approaches could/should be taken to address the research question?

Generation of a range of knock-out M bois where the genes for various immunomodulatory factors or other stealth
mechanisms have been removed and their use in experimental infections.

What else needs to be done before we can solve this need?

Improved understanding of M bovis-macrophage interaction – M bovis and macrophage gene expression in different in vivo environments (macrophages from naïve and immune hosts)

Existing knowledge including successes and failures