Riid teams with NCSU in novel Anthrax Vaccine

There is a recent story popping up on a number of my news feeds.  I’ll just trace it back to the original North Carolina State Press release.

L. acidophilus bacteria near vaginal squamous epithelial cells, courtesy wikipedia

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that the good bacteria found in dairy products and linked to positive health benefits in the human body might also be an effective vehicle for an oral vaccine that can provide immunity to anthrax exposure. The approach could possibly be used to deliver any number of specific vaccines that could block other types of viruses and pathogens.

The oral vaccine riding inside the good bacteria makes its way through the stomach and into the small intestine, an important immunological organ, where it easily and efficiently binds to cells that trigger an immune response – in this case, protection against anthrax in mice.

The finding, published the week of Feb. 16 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that an oral vaccine can be as effective as one given by needle, a potentially huge advance in drug delivery. Most vaccines are proteins, and as such normally won’t maintain their effectiveness after being digested in the stomach.

The good bacteria – Lactobacillus acidophilus, a lactic acid bacteria – are naturally found in dairy products like milk and cheese, and are added by manufacturers to foods like yogurt. They are used in food fermentations, are safe for consumption and some are considered as probiotics that contribute to our general health and well-being.

Dendritic cells are the first line of immune cells outside the small intestine. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Todd Klaenhammer and colleagues developed an oral vaccine that protected mice from anthrax exposure. The vaccine targeted dendritic cells to trigger the mucosal immune system to respond to and elicit protection against anthrax. Via NCSU web site

This is a very interesting approach and I wonder why it hasn’t been tried before? Perhaps it has, but I wouldn’t mind having that anthrax vaccine in my yogurt.

I almost forgot to mention the local relevance.  The work was also conducted at USAMRIID under the guidence of S.J. Sandwick and T. Hoover.  Pretty sure that would’ve been done at Ft Detrick,.