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Our Mission

Professor Kaufmann leads an international consortium of 15 leading institutions in Europe, Africa, and the U.S.

To identify differences in the immune response between people exposed to tuberculosis (TB) and never become sick and those who develop serious disease
To focus particular attention on people coinfected with both Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection (HIV)
To develop biomarkers for design and testing of new TB vaccines, drugs and diagnostics, especially in areas with high HIV infection

Roadblocks to progress

The major roadblock in the development of effective new TB vaccines is a lack of our understanding of what constitutes protective immunity during natural infection with Mtb. We expect that insight into the mechanisms of protection and TB disease progression will enable us to define immune correlates and host biomarkers of disease that can predict whether new TB vaccines will be effective. Biomarkers are also expected to play an important role as surrogate endpoint markers in large-scale field trials with new TB vaccines and hence will facilitate the iterative process of vaccine optimization during clinical trials.

Grand Challenge – Project Goal

The Grand Challenge addressed is to learn which host responses provide protective immunity against TB. The goal of the project is to identify correlates of protective immunity and host biomarkers of TB disease with prognostic potential. These biomarkers will be essential decision support tools for the design and evaluation of novel and improved TB vaccines in both Africa and the rest of the world.