“Researchers at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine report encouraging results from a phase 2 clinical trial evaluating a candidate vaccine to prevent hookworm infection – one of the world’s most common parasitic diseases.

The findings, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that a formulation of the investigational vaccine significantly reduced the intensity of infection in healthy adult volunteers exposed to the parasite under carefully controlled conditions…

• Participants who received the Na-GST 1/Al–CpG vaccine showed a dramatically lower intensity of infection after exposure: maximal hookworm egg count was median 0.0 eggs per gram of feces compared with the placebo group (median 66.7 eggs)
• Peak eosinophil levels – a blood marker linked to parasitic infection – were significantly lower in the Na-GST-1/Al–CpG group of participants.
• This group of participants also produced the highest levels of anti–Na-GST-1 antibodies, suggesting these antibodies may help protect against infection.”

From Newswise.

“Four doses of an experimental vaccine to protect against Lyme disease reduced the number of tick-borne infections by more than 70 percent, according to Pfizer and Valneva, the pharmaceutical companies developing the shot.

Pfizer said in a statement the companies are ‘confident in the vaccine’s potential’ and plan to submit the data to regulatory authorities, even though it missed a statistical cutoff for success. If approved, it could become the only Lyme disease vaccine available for people — although it would not be the first.”

From Washington Post.

“Losing a beloved pet is difficult for anyone to accept, but an Australian tech entrepreneur refused to give up when his five-year-old rescue pup Rosie was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Turning to ChatGPT and AlphaFold, Paul Conyngham worked with scientists to create a personalized mRNA vaccine. ‘We took her tumor, we sequenced the DNA, we converted it from tissue to data, and then we used that to search for the problem in her DNA, and then developed a cure based on that,’ Rosie’s owner Paul Conyngham said in an interview with the Today Show Australia. ‘ChatGPT assisted throughout the entire process.'”

From The Scientist.

“A vaccine that can protect against acne has entered early-stage trials. Using mRNA technology, the vaccine targets specific strains of the C. acnes bacterium and the inflammatory pathways thought to drive it.

Acne is one of the most prevalent diseases worldwide, with about 85% of adolescents affected, and it is increasing in prevalence in adults.

If successful, acne vaccines could mark the beginning of a new class of vaccines designed not just to stop infections, but to recalibrate the complex relationships between microbes, the immune system and chronic conditions.”

From Gavi.