Human Challenge to Improve TB Vaccine Development​

Speaker: Dr Emma Carter is a clinical research fellow with the Liverpool Vaccine Group at LSTM working on the development of a TB Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM). She is a specialty trainee in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology doing a PhD in this field. The Liverpool Vaccine Group, led by Prof Daniela Ferreira, have conducted CHIMs using Streptococcus pneumoniae for years, and have recently completed the largest CHIM globally. They have recently expanded their portfolio of human challenge agents to include BCG, paratyphoid and a model investigating co-infection with RSV and Streptococcus pneumonia due to start soon with University of Oxford. They have close collaborations with the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome trust, have successfully transferred the experimental human pneumococcal carriage model from Liverpool to Blantyre, Malawi and are developing the BCG challenge model with this group.

Topic: Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is the only licensed vaccine against TB but has sub-optimal efficacy in pulmonary TB in high burden areas. CHIMs for TB may be used to accelerate vaccine development and test novel therapeutics. It is currently not possible or feasible to give wild type Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a challenge agent. BCG contains live Mycobacterium bovis(part of the M.tbcomplex) and has previously been used as a challenge agent in TB CHIMs. The Liverpool Vaccine Group are collaborating with the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust to develop a CHIM for Tuberculosis. We aim to replicate and refine an intradermal BCG CHIM established in Oxford. In particular we will undertake minimally invasive longitudinal skin sampling methods so that we can understand growth kinetics and potentially use this as a platform to test therapeutics.​