Scientists crack the code on new vaccine for deadly plague bacteria
By Melissa Rudy
Published July 15, 2025
Israeli researchers have developed a new vaccine that is "100% effective" against a bacteria that is deadly to humans.
The announcement came from Tel Aviv University, which teamed up with the Israel Institute for Biological Research to create the mRNA-based vaccine, which is the first to protect against bacteria.
"In the study, we show that our mRNA vaccine provides 100% protection against pneumonic plague (a severe lung infection), which is considered the most dangerous form of the disease," study co-lead Professor Dan Peer, director of the Laboratory of Precision NanoMedicine at Tel Aviv University, told Fox News Digital.
ARIZONA RESIDENT DIES OF PNEUMONIC PLAGUE, THE FIRST DEADLY CASE IN AREA IN NEARLY 20 YEARS
"Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is considered a highly lethal infectious bacterium, against which no approved vaccine exists."
This bacterium is so lethal, even at small doses, that it has been classified as a "Tier 1 select agent" by the CDC and is considered a "potential bioterror weapon," according to Peer.
"Several natural local outbreaks have been recorded in the past few years, indicating that Y. pestis still poses a risk to the human population," he noted.
The researchers tested the novel mRNA vaccine in animals infected with the bacteria, a university press release stated.
BUBONIC PLAGUE IN THE US: DO YOU NEED TO WORRY ABOUT CATCHING THE RODENT-BORNE DISEASE?
"Within a week, all unvaccinated animals died, while those vaccinated with our vaccine remained alive and well," the team reported, noting that a single dose provided full protection after two weeks.
The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.
"Our mRNA vaccine provides 100% protection against pneumonic plague, which is considered the most dangerous form of the disease."
Before this study, mRNA vaccines were only shown to protect against viruses, such as COVID-19, but not bacteria, according to Tel Aviv University's Dr. Edo Kon, who co-led the study.
"Until now, scientists believed that mRNA vaccines against bacteria were biologically unattainable," said Kon in the announcement. "In our study, we proved that it is, in fact, possible to develop mRNA vaccines that are 100% effective against deadly bacteria."
While vaccines for viruses trigger human cells to produce viral proteins, which then train the immune system to protect against them, that same method hasn't been effective for bacteria.
Instead, the scientists used a different method to release bacterial proteins that successfully created a "significant immune response."
"To enhance the bacterial protein's stability and make sure that it does not disintegrate too quickly inside the body, we buttressed it with a section of human protein," they wrote. "By combining the two breakthrough strategies, we obtained a full immune response."
Dr. Jacob Glanville, CEO of Centivax, a San Francisco biotechnology company, reiterated the importance of the study.
"This is distinct from research in coronavirus, influenza and cancer, which have so far been driving mRNA vaccine applications," Glanville, who was not part of the research team, told Fox News Digital.
The study shows how mRNA technologies can be rapidly applied to "novel threat areas," he confirmed.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"Following blowback from the mandates and rare but admittedly problematic side effects related to initial COVID-19 vaccines, mRNA as a platform has faced additional scrutiny to make sure that the next generation of vaccines to emerge from it has learned the lessons from the initial vaccines, and improved upon them," Glanville told Fox News Digital.
"This research demonstrates yet another large application area for the technology." Potential limitations
The primary limitation of the study, according to Peer, is that the vaccine's effectiveness was shown in mice.
"As with any pre-clinical study, it needs to be evaluated in a clinical study in order to assess its effectiveness in humans," he told Fox News Digital.
In addition, the experimental mRNA vaccine is based on the "lipid nanoparticle (LNP) mRNA vaccine platform" that was recently approved for COVID-19 vaccines, Peer noted, which requires "cold chain logistics" (a supply chain that uses refrigeration).
"Nevertheless, extensive studies are performed in our lab, focusing on lipid formulation stability optimization that will enable room-temperature storage," the researcher added. Looking ahead
The goal is for this new technology to fast-track vaccines for bacterial diseases, according to the researchers. This could be particularly beneficial for pathogenic (disease-causing) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
"If tomorrow we face some kind of bacterial pandemic, our study will provide a pathway for quickly developing safe and effective mRNA vaccines."
"Due to excessive use of antibiotics over the last few decades, many bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics, reducing the effectiveness of these important drugs," said Peer.
"Consequently, antibiotic-resistant bacteria already pose a real threat to human health worldwide. Developing a new type of vaccine may provide an answer to this global problem."
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
As Peer pointed out, the quick development of the COVID-19 vaccine was based on years of mRNA research for similar viruses.
"If tomorrow we face some kind of bacterial pandemic, our study will provide a pathway for quickly developing safe and effective mRNA vaccines."
As this was a pre-clinical proof-of-concept study, Peer noted that several major milestones still need to be fulfilled before this vaccine could be considered for commercial rollout.
However, he believes that in an emergency situation, the vaccine could be scaled up and prepared in a "relatively short time."
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
Peer concluded, "Beyond addressing the threat of plague outbreaks and potential bioterrorism, this study opens the door to developing mRNA vaccines against other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, offering a powerful new strategy to combat rising antimicrobial resistance and improve global pandemic preparedness."
The study was supported by the European Research Council, the Israel Institute for Biological Research and the Shmunis Family Foundation. Print Close
URL
https://www.foxnews.com/health/scientists-crack-code-new-vaccine-deadly-plague-bacteria
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US measles cases reach 33-year high with active outbreaks in 14 states
The United States is having its worst year for measles spread in more than three decades. The national case count reached 1,288 on Wednesday, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), though public health experts say the true figure may be higher. The CDC's count is 14 infections higher than 2019, when the US almost lost its status of having eliminated the vaccine-preventable illness – something that could happen this year if the virus spreads without stopping for 12 months. But the US is still far from 1991, when there were 9,643 confirmed cases. In a short statement, the federal government said that the CDC 'continues to recommend (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines as the best way to protect against measles'. Related Measles in Europe: Where are cases of one of the world's most contagious diseases on the rise? It also said it is 'supporting community efforts' to tamp down ongoing outbreaks as requested. Fourteen states have active outbreaks; four other states' outbreaks have ended. The largest outbreak started five months ago in undervaccinated communities in West Texas. Three people have died – two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico – and dozens of people have been hospitalized across the US. 'What concerned me early on in this outbreak was is it spreading to other parts of the United States, and that's definitely what's happening now,' said Katherine Wells, the public health director from Lubbock County in Texas. Related Romania's measles crisis: What's driving Europe's biggest outbreak? In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC said measles had been eliminated from the US. But continuing vaccine hesitancy could threaten that status. 'What we're seeing with measles is a little bit of a 'canary in a coal mine,'' said Lauren Gardner, leader of Johns Hopkins University's independent measles and COVID-19 tracking databases. 'It's indicative of a problem that we know exists with vaccination attitudes in this county and just, I think, likely to get worse'.
WIRED
2 hours ago
- WIRED
Can US Measles Outbreaks Be Stopped?
Jul 16, 2025 2:42 PM The US almost lost its measles elimination status once. Lessons from that episode suggest it will be more difficult to avoid doing so now. The US is experiencing its worst year for measles in over three decades, with more than 1,300 cases in 40 states as of July 16. Cases were almost as high in 2019, putting the country's measles elimination status at risk. Six years ago, health officials were able to stop the spread. But amid growing public backlash against vaccines, many of the tactics used then may not work now. Measles elimination means there has been no continuous transmission in a country for longer than 12 months. That almost happened in the 2019 outbreak, which largely affected Orthodox Jewish populations in New York City and some surrounding counties. In fall 2018, US travelers returning from Israel tested positive for measles. The disease quickly spread throughout close-knit communities, especially among children, due to low vaccination rates. While the statewide measles vaccination rate for school-age children was 98 percent the previous school year, vaccination coverage in schools in the outbreak area was only 77 percent. Because measles is highly contagious, a 95 percent vaccination rate is needed to protect a community from the disease. As a result, the majority of measles cases occurred in individuals 18 and under, nearly 86 percent of whom were known to be unvaccinated. Some of those people developed severe complications, including pneumonia, and nearly 8 percent were hospitalized. The current surge is being fueled by an outbreak that started in an undervaccinated Mennonite community in West Texas. Cases have since spread to other Texas counties, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Two children in Texas with no underlying conditions and one adult in New Mexico have died this year as a result of measles. All were unvaccinated. 'There are definitely parallels. What we saw in New York was very much the result of years and years of spread of misinformation and disinformation around the safety of vaccines,' says Neil Vora, executive director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition and previously a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who helped respond to the 2019 outbreak. Cases eventually burned out in New York after a months-long effort that included both traditional public health approaches and policy changes at the local and state level. 'You need to take the first case seriously, because it's like kindling. You never know when that fire is just going to break out,' says Oxiris Barbot, the current president and CEO of the United Hospital Fund, who served as New York City's health commissioner from 2018 to 2020. As the disease spread, Barbot realized the city health department would need to go to the source of transmission, largely the Orthodox Jewish schools in affected neighborhoods. Working with school administrators, they reviewed vaccination records to identify unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children. Following an exposure, those children were prohibited from attending school and childcare for 21 days, the incubation period for measles. Similar measures were taken in some counties outside the city. 'It took a lot of staff time, a lot of leg work,' Barbot says. In one school, a contagious child led to more than 25 infections in other students and further spread outside the school. She says the health department was 'heavily involved' in making sure schools were abiding by the quarantine measures.' Health officials also worked to combat misinformation. A Jewish anti-vaccine group called Parents Teaching and Advocating for Children's Health, or PEACH, distributed a 40-page anti-vaccination booklet titled 'The Vaccine Safety Handbook' that contained conspiracy theories and inaccurate information, including the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. In response, the city health department mailed booklets that provided accurate and religiously relevant information about vaccines to thousands of households in affected neighborhoods and launched a campaign to combat vaccine myths. 'We were consistently delivering the same message that was backed by science and that gave our community partners the legitimacy with which to engage their family, their friends, and their neighbors in countering the myths and disinformation that was being shared,' Barbot says. When those efforts weren't enough on their own, New York City used its public health authority to increase vaccination rates. In April 2019, about six months after the first cases appeared, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency, requiring individuals living, working, or going to school in affected zip codes to be vaccinated against measles. Those who didn't comply could be fined. In Rockland County, unvaccinated people under the age of 18 were banned from public places for 30 days. That summer, the New York legislature also changed statewide vaccination requirements to remove religious exemptions, which were previously allowed. The change applied to public, private, and religious schools. As a result of the efforts in New York, tens of thousands of vaccine doses were administered. In one affected Brooklyn neighborhood, the percentage of children who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine increased from less than 80 percent to 91 percent between October 2018 and September 2019. A modeling study by a researcher at Columbia University found that without these measures, numbers of infections and hospitalizations could have been 10 times higher. Those efforts won't necessarily map neatly onto the current measles outbreak. Vaccine requirements would likely face pushback in conservative states like Texas, especially since mistrust around vaccines has risen since the Covid-19 pandemic. (In fact, in May, Texas lawmakers passed a bill to make it easier for parents to seek vaccine exemptions for their children. That law goes into effect September 1.) 'Different approaches are going to have to be tailored for the unique needs of those specific areas. It's not a one-size-fits all approach,' Vora says. In Texas, the Department of State Health Services carried out a comprehensive paid media campaign that included online, broadcast, billboard, and on-site ads in businesses in two phases from March to June to encourage measles vaccination. The department was especially focused on areas where measles was spreading and areas at greater risk of an outbreak. This was in addition to the department's usual vaccination campaigns, a spokesperson tells WIRED via email. Zach Holbrooks, executive director for the South Plains Public Health District in Texas, which covers Gaines, Yoakum, Terry and Dawson counties, says his department had mobile vaccine and testing clinics operating in all four counties from February until May, when cases started to decline. Gaines County, which has reported more than half of the cases in Texas, is no longer an active outbreak county as of July 8. 'Anytime we saw cases popping up where they hadn't been before, we would get with our state partners and deploy resources to those areas,' Holbrooks says. 'All we can do is supply opportunities for people to get screened or vaccinated. It's really up to them to take advantage of those services.' In Gaines County, 313 people were vaccinated as part of those efforts, although Holbrooks says he was hoping to see more. His district tried to get the word out about vaccination with a mobile billboard truck that drove around the region. They also worked with the state and CDC to translate vaccine communication into German to target the Mennonite community. 'The messaging was out there,' Holbrooks says. But he thinks lingering mistrust from the Covid-19 pandemic has led to more people rejecting vaccines and public health guidance. 'Sometimes attitudes and feelings about vaccines are pretty hardwired in people, and it's hard to overcome the negative beliefs that they have.' It's also been challenging to get people to comply with the 21-day quarantine rule. He received reports of kids with measles being out in public with their parents. 'A lot of people didn't take it seriously,' he says of the quarantine period. Another hurdle is that many people are traveling for summer vacations, which can easily spread disease and make it harder to trace the chains of transmission. There are signs, however, that disease spread may be slowing down. The number of new measles cases has been declining in recent weeks, according to the CDC. Still, with pockets of low vaccination across the country, transmission could continue throughout the rest of the year, and future outbreaks are likely. Building back trust in vaccines and public health will take time. Barbot says consistent messaging at the federal, state, and local levels is one step in that direction. While current US Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tepidly endorsed the measles vaccine, he has also made the false claim that protection from the vaccine wanes quickly and has promoted vitamin A as a treatment for measles. While vitamin A is often given to children with nutritional deficiencies who get measles, it doesn't kill the virus. 'It's not too late,' Barbot says. 'With an all-out effort we can avoid losing that [elimination] status.'
Atlantic
9 hours ago
- Atlantic
The Conversations Doctors Are Having About Vaccination Now
For years, studies have pointed to one especially powerful influence over whether a person will get a vaccine: a clear recommendation from their doctor. Throughout most of her career, Nola Ernest, a pediatrician in rural southeastern Alabama, could reassure families who were hesitating to vaccinate their kids—in many cases by explaining that she had enthusiastically opted into the same shots for her own sons. In the past few months, though, she's spoken with several families who, at her recommendation, had previously immunized all of their older kids—and yet are now adamant about not vaccinating their newborn. 'I reassure them that I am still the same pediatrician,' Ernest told me. 'They say, 'We still trust you. We just think a lot of the things have been pushed on us for a long time that were not actually necessary, or were harmful.'' Until recently, doubt about vaccines might have been seeded mainly by cautions from friends and family, or by unreliable information online. Now, though, doubt about vaccines has the weight of the federal government behind it. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has been telling the public exactly what Ernest's patients told her: Unnecessary, unsafe vaccines have been forced on you. A recent KFF tracking survey found that about three-fourths of Republicans trust their physician to provide reliable information about vaccines—but about three-fourths trust President Donald Trump and Kennedy to do so as well. As those sources start to contradict one another, patients' trust in doctors—which was already eroding —is being pitted directly against trust in government. And in doctors' offices across the country, the Trump administration's position is bending conversations about vaccinations—in some cases toward hesitancy, and in others toward haste as people fear that shots will soon be harder to get. Government advisers and doctors have diverged in their vaccination advice before. In 1989, for instance, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommended that children receive their second dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine between the ages of 4 and 6, when kids are due for other vaccines; that same year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, following the logic that outbreaks tended to happen in middle school or high school, advised age 11 or 12. The conflicting guidance created enough uncertainty for health professionals and patients that ACIP and the AAP pledged in 1993 to sync their vaccine advice, and in 1995 published the country's first officially harmonized immunization schedule. The current vaccine schism between the government and medical professionals, though, is different in kind—not a disagreement over maximizing uptake of data-backed vaccines, but a fight over what evidence to even consider. In May, Kennedy bypassed the CDC—his own department's agency—and tried to unilaterally remove COVID-vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people, without providing any evidence of harm. Weeks later, he dismissed all 17 members of ACIP and replaced them with researchers who largely lack expertise in vaccines, including multiple people who are openly antagonistic toward them. At its first meeting last month, that reconstituted group voted to remove recommendations for flu shots, following the advice of an anti-vaccine activist invited to speak at the meeting. (When reached over email for comment, an HHS spokesperson wrote that 'HHS continues to support the CDC and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in advancing evidence-based immunization schedules' and that 'the Secretary stands by his CDC reforms.') These upheavals have prompted a very public fight. Last week, several professional societies—including the AAP, the American College of Physicians, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America—sued Kennedy and HHS, calling recent shifts in vaccine policy 'capricious' and arguing that the department's new leaders were putting the nation's health at risk. The AAP also boycotted ACIP's most recent meeting. Shortly after, Martin Kulldorff, the new ACIP chair, criticized the AAP's loyalty to the unamended immunization schedule as 'unscientific.' The government's alterations to vaccine guidance so far have been relatively limited. But Kennedy and many of his allies have criticized the immunization schedule, especially for kids, or advocated for paring it back further. And according to nearly a dozen doctors I spoke with, plenty of patients have already picked up on the spirit of these changes: that they should put less stock in vaccination than the government had previously called for. 'Families have really been shaken in their confidence in what we've been telling them all this time,' Molly O'Shea, a pediatrician in Michigan, told me. 'We're already seeing in my practices a decrease in people taking vaccines on schedule.' In the past, when O'Shea asked, her patients would usually explain their rationale for distrusting a vaccine—something they had read online, a rumor they had heard from a relative. Now, though, many of them don't want to discuss their choice at all, a response she's rarely encountered in her three decades of practicing medicine. In some cases, families are echoing Kennedy's concerns, and pressing their doctors to directly address them. Like many pediatricians, O'Shea requires that her patients follow the recommended childhood-immunization schedule to continue to be seen at her practice; at one of her offices, several families have asked recently why she's maintaining the policy even though Kennedy has described vaccination as a personal decision. Braveen Ragunanthan, a pediatrician in a rural part of the Mississippi Delta, told me that a patient recently expressed concerns about the immunizations recommended for his six-month-old daughter after hearing something on the news. The patient asked, 'All this time, has there been something wrong with the shots?' Ragunanthan told me. Ernest, the pediatrician in Alabama, told me that one family of longtime patients, when declining to vaccinate their newborn, cited the debunked notion that vaccines cause autism, an idea that Kennedy has repeatedly endorsed. Several of Kennedy's other mistruths about vaccines, including that certain shots contain 'aborted-fetus debris' and that the hepatitis B vaccine has been linked to autism, have come up as well. Some of the families she sees have also cast federal vaccine regulators and pharmaceutical companies as untrustworthy—echoing Kennedy's narrative that the U.S. approach to vaccine policy has been corrupt and is bent on pushing dangerous shots for industry profit. Families who remain eager to vaccinate are also taking seriously Kennedy's rhetoric—and the implication that a government that endorses fewer shots will ultimately depress their availability. Gretchen LaSalle, a family-medicine physician in Spokane, Washington, told me that some of her patients have started asking whether they'll be able to get their fall COVID and flu shots; Jennifer Hamilton, a family-medicine physician in Philadelphia, said she's heard similar concerns from older adults about shingles and pneumococcal vaccines. Ragunanthan also recently vaccinated a patient against HPV at age 9, the earliest age of eligibility and two years before most pediatricians routinely offer the first dose, at her parents' request. 'They said, 'I don't know if they're going to try to take it away,'' he said. Several doctors told me that they're committed to following whatever their professional society—be it the AAP, the American Academy of Family Physicians, or another organization—recommends. But they also acknowledged that doing so may not be practical. Public schools generally look to the national immunization schedule to determine which vaccines to mandate for entry, and when; the government's official stance on vaccines can also influence the price and availability of shots, and determine what insurers will cover. ACIP also decides which vaccines are covered by the Vaccines for Children Program, which ensures access for kids whose families can't afford shots. Certain patients might opt to pay for shots out of pocket; Alanna Levine, a pediatrician in New York, told me that her practice intends to seek grant funding that might help it continue to offer vaccines to all of its patients, regardless of insurance coverage. But some vaccines can cost as much as hundreds of dollars per dose —a price that many families won't be able to, or want to, pay and that many doctors' offices won't want to shoulder to keep shots in stock. 'We would definitely lose considerable money if we bought vaccines, paid to store the vaccines, paid to administer the vaccines, and then families couldn't afford to pay us,' Ernest told me. As much as doctors want to continue to 'follow the science'—as nearly all of them put it to me—the power of the government may force their hand. 'I can recommend something, but if it's not paid for, I know my patients aren't going to get it,' Hamilton told me. Several doctors told me that they hope insurers end up following the recommendations of professional societies. But in the absence of official harmonization with the government, professional societies might revert to developing their own schedule. Even if they were to agree with one another, the discrepancy between official medical advice and official governmental advice casts doubt on the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and effective. Sian Jones-Jobst, a pediatrician in Lincoln, Nebraska, told me that some of her patients' visits are now so dominated by combatting vaccine hesitancy that she runs out of time to discuss other aspects of their health. Uncertainty also makes the work of caring for patients inherently more challenging: Before, doctors trusted that they could simply follow the recommended schedule to keep their patients up-to-date on vaccines, Jason Terk, a pediatrician in Keller, Texas, told me. Now, though, divergence is the norm.
