Roadmap for the development of candidate vaccine for bTB

What are we trying to achieve and why? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

The identity the M bovis components that the host needs to respond to to prevent and contain infection

What are the scientific and technological challenges
(knowledge gaps needing to be addressed)?

Differentiating protective antigens from other antigens that the host is responding to which may be assisting the bacterium evade the hosts’ responses at a particular stage of infection.

What approaches could/should be taken to address the research question?

• To identify the antigens that are responsible for protective cellular responses.
• The identity of the antigens that the host is generating Abs to and their role in protection (preventing and clearing infection).
• Identifying possible protective antigens in the M bovis genome, their expression and trial in challenge experiments

What else needs to be done before we can solve this need?

Identity of protective mechanisms operating in immune hosts
– the role of cell-mediated immune responses and Abs.
The genome sequence of various virus isolates

Existing knowledge including successes and failures