Therapeutic, nasally delivered DNA vaccine fuses two genes to help fight tuberculosis

In a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a research team at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reports developing a therapeutic intranasal (nose-delivered) DNA vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) that fuses two genes with the goal of directing the immune system to fight drug-tolerant bacterial "persisters" that can survive prolonged antibiotic therapy and contribute to disease relapse.