[Editorial note: The famous French microbiologist and chemist, Louis Pasteur, pioneered the use of bacterial vaccines for prevention of infectious diseases in animals and humans. One of his early successes was in the development of a vaccine for the agriculturally important disease anthrax, a vaccine that is still in use today for animals worldwide and humans in some countries. He demonstrated ...

Bacillus anthracis strain 55-VNIIVViM is a live-attenuated nonencapsulated Soviet/Russian veterinary anthrax vaccine strain. We report here the genome of 55-VNIIVViM and confirm its phylogenetic placement in the global population structure of B. anthracis.

Taking the sting out of the anthrax vaccine Staff Sergeant Michael Murphy, of the Boone, Iowa, National Guard Reserve, is ready to do his duty when it comes time for members of his unit to get the next of six shots given over an 18-month period for anthrax vaccination. Although he is not entirely happy about it, he told the JCI, " I really don't have another choice other than get out, and I'm n...

BACKGROUND In Zambia, human anthrax cases often occur following cases of animal anthrax. Human behaviour has been implicated in this transmission. The objective of the study was to explore human behavioural patterns that may contribute to outbreaks of anthrax among affected communities. METHODS A mixed methods study was conducted in four districts of Zambia from November 2015 to February 2016...

BACKGROUND Anthrax and its etiologic agent remain a biological threat. Anthrax vaccine is highly effective, but vaccine-induced IgG antibody responses vary widely following required doses of vaccinations. Such variation can be related to genetic factors, especially genomic copy number variants (CNVs) that are known to be enriched among genes with immunologic function. We have tested this hypoth...

Prevention or therapy for bioterrorism-associated anthrax infections requires rapidly acting effective vaccines. We recently demonstrated (Y. Tan, N. R. Hackett, J. L. Boyer, and R. G. Crystal, Hum. Gene Ther. 14:1673-1682, 2003) that a single administration of a recombinant serotype 5 adenovirus (Ad) vector expressing anthrax protective antigen (PA) provides rapid protection against anthrax le...

Efficacy of a poly-gamma-D-glutamic acid anthrax capsule vaccine was assessed in a mouse model of infection. Capsule by itself was protective against lethal challenge with a toxin(-), capsule(+) Bacillus anthracis strain. Conjugation of capsule to bovine serum albumin resulted in enhanced IgG anti-capsule antibodies measured by ELISA, but completely abrogated the protection. The protective unco...

The potency assay currently used to evaluate consistency of manufacture for the anthrax vaccine is contingent upon meeting specified parameters after statistical analysis of the percent survival and time to death of vaccinated guinea pigs after challenge with spores of a virulent strain of Bacillus anthracis. During the development of a new anthrax vaccine based upon recombinant protective anti...