The only tuberculosis vaccine currently approved, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, protects children from the most severe forms of the disease in most cases but does not provide protection against the most common form, pulmonary tuberculosis in adults and children. BCG has therefore been unable to contain tuberculosis worldwide. Scientists led by Stefan Kaufmann of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin are therefore working feverishly on a more effective replacement for BCG. The vaccine candidate they have developed, dubbed VPM1002, will now be tested in a large-scale phase II trial with newborns. VPM1002 is a genetically modified variant of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Moreover, another trial will test whether VPM1002 is effective in the treatment of cancer of the bladder.
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