A Colombian scientist best known for his controversial vaccine against malaria is now tackling another public enemy - tuberculosis. Manuel Patarroyo, whose encouraging early results with malaria have dispelled the doubts of many scientists, believes a similar approach might work against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which infects a third of the world's population and kills more people than any other single infectious organism.
The current vaccine for TB, known as BCG, has a mixed record of success. BCG appears to protect babies against the disease, but trials in adults have produced contradictory results, with some showing that the vaccine protects and others showing that it fails to do so. Part of the reason for the failure may be that some strains of BCG, a mycobacterium related to M. tuberculosis, are not sufficiently like the killer bacterium to stimulate an immune response that protects against it.
Patarroyo told scientists in London this week ...
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