Evaluation of the efficacy of RUTI and ID93/GLA-SE vaccines in tuberculosis treatment: in silico trial through UISS-TB simulator

TL;DR

This paper presents an in silico trial using the UISS-TB simulator to evaluate the efficacy of RUTI and ID93/GLA-SE TB vaccines, aiming to accelerate vaccine development and understand potential failures.

Contribution

It introduces a computational platform for predicting TB vaccine-induced immunity and guides improvements, validated through planned clinical trials.

Findings

Simulation predicts immune responses to vaccines.

Framework identifies reasons for vaccine failure.

Supports optimization of TB vaccination strategies.

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the deadliest diseases worldwide, with 1,5 million fatalities every year along with potential devastating effects on society, families and individuals. To address this alarming burden, vaccines can play a fundamental role, even though to date no fully effective TB vaccine really exists. Current treatments involve several combinations of antibiotics administered to TB patients for up to two years, leading often to financial issues and reduced therapy adherence. Along with this, the development and spread of drug-resistant TB strains is another big complicating matter. Faced with these challenges, there is an urgent need to explore new vaccination strategies in order to boost immunity against tuberculosis and shorten the duration of treatment. Computational modeling represents an extraordinary way to simulate and predict the outcome of vaccination strategies, speeding up the arduous process of vaccine pipeline development and relative time to market. Here, we present EU - funded STriTuVaD project computational platform able to predict the artificial immunity induced by RUTI and ID93/GLA-SE, two specific tuberculosis vaccines. Such an in silico trial will be validated through a phase 2b clinical trial. Moreover, STriTuVaD computational framework is able to inform of the reasons for failure should the vaccinations strategies against M. tuberculosis under testing found not efficient, which will suggest possible improvements.