Title: Development of an endogenous STING agonist adjuvanted Mycobacterium bovis BCG vaccine to enhance efficacy against tuberculosis
Funding Agency: DBT Indo-US Vaccine adjuvant project
Amount: ~98.56 lakhs (Sanctioned)
Duration: 2020-2023
International Collaborators: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA
National Collaborators: National Institute of Animal Biotechnology
Abstract: This project aims to develop a clinical trial ready vaccine for Tuberculosis. The lead identified by us in our earlier published work utilized a recombinant BCG based system to over-produce and deliver mucosal adjuvant cyclic-di-AMP, a second messenger produced by M. tuberculosis. This project is focused on creating marker free stains with enhanced production of these mucosal adjuvant with a goal to improve its prophylactic potential against M. tb infection. The vaccine will be tested in multiple pre-clinical animal models such as mice, guinea pigs and rabbit model of latent TB.