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.
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"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.
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"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.
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"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."
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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."
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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
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"We clearly have a very strong bias [toward Europe] in the data distribution," Monika Korte, a geophysicist and magnetic modeler at Germany's GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, told Live Science. "Where we have sparse data we have just a very blurred picture, a very rough idea of what's going on." Geographic diversity is important, as samples taken from one area can indicate the magnetic field only in that area. For instance, other data similar to the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly's intense spikes of magnetic strength have been spotted in places like China and Korea around the Iron Age as well, but there's not enough evidence to confirm these as bona fide anomalies or to say whether they are related to the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly, Korte said. Why should we learn more about historic anomalies? The discovery of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly redefined our previous understanding of the potential strength of the field, Shaar said. Understanding how much the magnetic field can change may seem like a purely abstract endeavor, but these ancient fluctuations may have implications for modern times. Another important anomaly is the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), a region of weakened magnetic field that spans central South America in a strip that ends near southern Africa. It likely first emerged 11 million years ago, caused by the slight difference in location of the magnetic axis and the rotational axis at Earth's core. As the magnetic field is slightly off-center to the rotational axis, the field dips in strength over the South Atlantic, though the field's interaction with the churning mantle may also contribute to the anomaly. The South Atlantic Anomaly still exists today, and has disrupted communications from satellites and the International Space Station, as the weak magnetic field in the region lets through more radiation from solar wind. Studying the SAA throughout its history has helped scientists understand how our magnetic field changes over time, and how such anomalies alter the likelihood of a magnetic field reversal, when Earth's north and south poles flip. But although scientists have a reasonable understanding of the South Atlantic Anomaly, its weakened magnetic field is very different from the strong spikes of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly, which has baffled geophysicists. And though researchers haven't pinpointed the exact extent of the anomaly, its seemingly small scale of around 1,000 miles (1,609 km) across, combined with the extremely high spikes in the magnetic field, isn't easily explained. Some geomagnetists had suggested that the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly developed due to a narrow flux patch that developed on the outer core under the equator before it drifted north towards the Levant, potentially contributing to other spikes of intensity recorded in China. The inverse of the large lobes that funnel the magnetic field into the planet at the North Pole, this 'positive' flux patch would have pushed the field out in a powerful burst. Others believed the single flux patch didn't travel, instead multiple grew under the Levant, erupted, and decayed in place. Still, no theories can explain why the flux patch developed in the first place. With the most up-to-date archaeomagnetic data, geomagnetist Pablo Rivera at the Complutense University of Madrid published a paper in January that simulated both the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly and the South Atlantic Anomaly. By modeling their movement over time, his work suggested that both anomalies may have been influenced by a superplume underneath Africa — a massive blob of hot rock on the barrier between the core and the mantle that may disrupt the flow of the geodynamo below it. However, much is still unknown. "So far, there is not a single simulation that really describes all the [magnetic] features that we see well," Korte told Live Science. Many archaeomagnetic data points from around the globe suggest there may be more intensity spikes that could help resolve the mystery and create a unifying theory to explain the SAA, the LIAA and other spikes. But there currently isn't enough data to describe them accurately, or even begin to understand their causes. "We don't really understand what causes these anomalies, but we hope to learn more about how the geodynamo operates and what kinds of changes we also can expect for the future magnetic field," Korte said. This certainty is needed now more than ever, as more of our communications take to the skies. More than 13,500 satellites currently orbit Earth — a dramatic increase from only around 3,000 in 2020. The Government Accountability Agency estimates that another 54,000 satellites will launch by 2030. These satellites monitor weather patterns, send phone and TV signals, and create GPS. Satellites are generally protected from space radiation by Earth's magnetic field. But in places where the field is weaker, such as above the South Atlantic Anomaly, satellites have more memory problems as radiation bombards onboard computers and corrupts data. Filling out the picture Despite the expense and technical challenges of archaeomagnetism, there are many initiatives to expand the amount of data. In the U.S., the Institute for Rock Magnetism is expanding its archaeomagnetism program to begin building a more thorough history of the magnetic field in the Midwest, hoping to build their own localized dating system using archaeomagnetism, similar to the record Shaar and his collaborators have built in the Levant. RELATED STORIES —Weird dent in Earth's magnetic field is messing with auroras in the Southern Hemisphere —Earth's magnetic field formed before the planet's core, study suggests —Why do magnets have north and south poles? Interest in archaeomagnetism is also growing around the globe. The first archaeomagnetism data from Cambodia was published in 2021, and the first regional model of the magnetic field of Africa for the recent past was published in 2022. As the field of archaeomagnetism grows, scientists can start building a better understanding of how features like superplumes affect the magnetic field. The past 50 or so years of data has captured "only a really tiny snapshot in time," Shaar said, and "maybe there are more [anomalies] to find." Solve the daily Crossword
