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?

The development of an effective vaccine against bTB, reducing R0 to <1 and allowing vaccinated to be differentiated
from infected

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

• Vaccines can sensitise animals to current diagnostic tests resulting in false positives.
• The current BCG vaccine needs to be validated
• Availability of a standardised BCG
• The development of a better vaccine based on the rational attenuation of the organism or on purified immunogens delivered by various mechanisms

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

• Establish protection levels with various candidate vaccine options, including priming with one vaccine and boosting with a different vaccine.
• In particular establishing the level of protection given by BCG vaccination as a base line to compare other vaccines with Establish if bovine genetics influences responses

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

• Validation of BCG
• Development of a novel attenuated vaccine that isn’t excreted
• Development of a subunit vaccine
• Development of a DNA vaccine
• Development of a cross protective vectored vaccine

Existing knowledge including successes and failures