\u201cThis bacteria can cause an aggressive form of pneumonia within 72 hours that can obliterate the lung. Our study found that the animals protected by this vaccine showed no damage; their lungs were completely normal,\u201d said corresponding author Lisa Morici, PhD, a microbiologist and immunologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible result and we hope to advance the vaccine soon to human clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis bacteria is a Tier 1 Select Agent \u2013 the same threat level as the virus that causes smallpox and the bacteria that causes anthrax \u2013 and we\u2019re closer than ever to being able to protect people against it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lisa Morici<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Melioidosis is caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, bacteria most often found in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Although long considered absent from the United States, B. pseudomallei has been recently found in the Gulf Coast as well as in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.\u00a0The bacteria can enter open wounds of someone walking in a rice paddy, for example, or be ingested or inhaled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are an estimated 165,000 cases of melioidosis worldwide annually, though it\u2019s believed to be highly underreported, as symptoms can vary drastically. Mortality rate ranges from 20-50% as the bacteria are naturally resistant to many antibiotics, and relapse can occur even after months of intensive therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith rising temperatures, melioidosis is occurring in new places with endemic cases in the U.S., and we\u2019re also seeing an increased risk to global travelers and people in the military,\u201d Morici said. \u201cThis bacteria is a Tier 1 Select Agent \u2014 the same threat level as the virus that causes smallpox and the bacteria that causes anthrax \u2014 and we\u2019re closer than ever to being able to protect people against it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morici is a pioneer in developing next-generation vaccines using a new class of adjuvants or immune system triggers based on outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), which are nanoparticles shed by bacteria as they grow. Our bodies recognize OMVs secreted by live bacteria during natural infection. When used in vaccines, they can fool the body into mounting a powerful immune response.<\/p>\n
While the vaccine has not yet gone to human clinical trial, it was tested on human immune cell samples. The resulting antibody and T cell responses \u201csuggested that the vaccine will produce the desired immune responses for protection in humans,\u201d Morici said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Development of the vaccine has taken more than a decade and required global collaboration between Tulane University, Northern Arizona University, University of California Irvine and Charles Darwin University in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur vaccine was effective against aerosolized bacteria, the most lethal and difficult to protect against,\u201d Morici said. \u201cThis has been a massive undertaking that we hope will be able to protect people from a very dangerous disease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"December 18, 2025 11:09 AM \u00a0|\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Melioidosis is a little-known tropical disease now seen as an emerging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[18,135,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-240361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115744211330878131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}