Scientists Closer to Developing Meningitis Vaccine
Scientists may be on track to develop a vaccine for the most common strain of meningitis, which has so far resisted an effective vaccine.
Meningitis is a serious disease caused by an inflammation of the lining that protects the brain and spinal cord. Vaccines exist for most varieties of the bacteria that cause epidemics of the disease.
The disease can be fatal, even when treatment with antibiotics begins quickly. Those who survive can have permanent brain damage. So vaccination is important.
Vaccines against some strains of meningitis have been used for decades, but the method for creating them was not effective in developing a vaccine against the most common variety of the meningitis bacteria, called group B.
"For this reason, we had to find different ways. And we have been using genomics to find proteins that could be used as vaccine targets," says Rino Rappuoli of the pharmaceutical company Novartis.
He and his colleagues set out to make a substance - an immunogen - that would prompt the body to produce antibodies to fight all the numerous sub-varieties of group B. |