In an initial step towards the development of a new vaccine to prevent tuberculosis, the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation has named Anne S. De Groot, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Brown University School of Medicine and CEO of EpiVax, Inc., as one of 13 researchers to the Core Scientist Program of its Tuberculosis Vaccine Collaboration (TBVC) program. Acting as a focused research team, these core scientists will pursue vaccine development projects with the goal of bringing a TB vaccine to clinical trials within the next five years.

"What we are trying to do in the Core Scientist Program is to accelerate the transition of experimental vaccines from the research bench to the clinic. The three major areas addressed by this program are clinical trial site development, new tools for vaccine assessment in clinical trials, and research supporting the eventual clinical evaluation of candidate tuberculosis vaccines," says Carol Nacy, Ph.D., President of the Foundation. "Our goal is not just the research, but an actual vaccine."

De Groot was selected for her proposal to develop a genome derived 'epitope-driven' DNA vaccine, a novel concept that she is pioneering at her Rhode Island based company, EpiVax. The research and development program will be directed by EpiVax and take place at the TB/HIV Research Laboratory, Brown University.


Response to vaccines is based on recognition of epitopes contained within those vaccines by the host (animal or human) immune system. Most vaccines contain a great deal of additional information that may not be necessary to achieve the desired result. Stripping vaccines down to the bare essentials, the epitopes, makes it possible to build and test vaccines faster, while also permitting researchers to "stuff" more vaccine
information into the vaccines that they are building. Bioinformatic tools that identify epitopes, the minimum amount of information necessary to turn on the immune system, were developed by De Groot at the TB/HIV Research lab, of Brown University and licensed to EpiVax, Inc. in August 1999. EpiVax is currently using these tools to facilitate the analysis of the massive amount of information derived from genomes for vaccine development.

De Groot was selected along with several other well known TB vaccine researchers including Barry Bloom, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Bill Jacobs Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, who will be developing a live attenuated vaccine for TB, and Doug Lowrie of Mill Hill, London, who will be developing a DNA vaccine based on heat shock proteins. Currently, the only tuberculosis vaccine available is based on an attenuated strain of a related bacterium, Mycobacterium bovis. Although this vaccine does provide protection against severe and fatal forms of tuberculosis in children, its efficacy in adults is questionable.

Once thought to be under control and nearly eradicated in industrialized countries, tuberculosis continues to be a threat in all countries because of increasing drug resistance. It is estimated that nearly a third of the world's population, approximately 2 billion people, are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes the disease. About 10% of these individuals will develop active tuberculosis disease within their lifetime. The antibiotics and the vaccine currently used to treat and prevent this disease are antiquated and have limited effectiveness. The Core Scientists Program is the first step in the Foundation's TBVC, an international program designed to coordinate and facilitate the development of a vaccine. The scientists represent a variety of scientific, engineering and public health disciplines that are necessary to create a successful vaccine.

Founded in 1997, the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to providing resources, facilities and expertise to assist tuberculosis researchers across the world to move their discoveries in basic science through the laboratory, into the clinic and out to health care workers. It is funded by a number of corporate and philanthropic sources including a generous grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


For more information on World TB day go to: http://www.who.int/gtb/WorldTBDay/2000/index.htm