Investigators: Tobi Kollmann
Project description
Sepsis is a major preventable cause of early life mortality affecting 3 million neonates and 1.2 million children worldwide. Neonatal administration of the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) tuberculosis vaccine confers protection against sepsis and respiratory infections, in addition to immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The mechanism of this protection is of major interest to develop better, safer, more effective vaccines to fight against sepsis. Recent studies by our team have identified emergency granulopoiesis and the induction of trained immunity as modes of action of the BCG vaccine on programming immune responses.
This study will investigate the epigenetic changes underpinning the important beneficial non-specific effects of BCG vaccination in two longitudinal neonatal cohorts from the Gambia and Papua New Guinea.