Research Theme

• Research and development of preventive vaccines for adult tuberculosis and COVID-19 using novel CTL adjuvant and its application

Keyword

• BCG
• Adjuvant
• Cytotoxic T cells
• Tuberculosis vaccine
• COVID-19 vaccine

Overview of Research

• Although BCG is widely used as a vaccine against tuberculosis in infant, efficacy against the pulmonary disease in adults is limited. Development of a tuberculosis vaccine for adults has been underway around the world. However, there has been no practical vaccine yet to solve the problem. In addition, it has been reported that BCG suppresses various diseases other than tuberculosis by its off-target effect. It was reported in 2022 that the BCG Tokyo strain showed effective suppression for the onset of COVID-19 due to its excellent induction of innate immunity. However, it remains unclear what kind of immune response is responsible for such off-target effects.
• Various adjuvant molecules have been purified and identified from the BCG Tokyo strain. Among them, we will identify molecules that enhance the induction of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and apply them to preventive vaccines against infectious diseases in which CTL plays a critical role in protection against infection and onset of the diseases. Using the novel adjuvant, we will aim to develop a tuberculosis vaccine to enhance the CTL response by BCG, which has a weak CTL priming ability, and a universal coronavirus vaccine that can cover a variety of mutant strains by induction of CTL against conserved regions of SARS-CoV2 antigens.