K.O. for TB?
Each year, tuberculosis strikes about nine million people worldwide; about two million die from the persistent infection. The disease is becoming deadlier as more strains of the TB bacterium develop resistance to the drugs used to treat it. And the only vaccine against TB, derived from the TB bacteria that infect cows, is often ineffective: in recent tests, the vaccine protected fewer than half of those immunized.
Immunologist William Jacobs and his coworkers at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine may have found a way to fortify our crumbling defenses against TB. Jacobs has created a vaccine based on the TB bacterium that infects humans; by using mutant strains of the bacterium, he has made a vaccine that he describes as safe yet far more effective than ones based on the cow TB bacteria. Jacobs hopes to have the vaccine in clinical trials within a year.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
These exclusive satellite images show that Saudi Arabia’s sci-fi megacity is well underway
Weirdly, any recent work on The Line doesn’t show up on Google Maps. But we got the images anyway.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.