Current Challenges in Vaccinology

Abstract

The development of vaccines, which prime the immune system to respond to future infections, has led to global declines in morbidity and mortality from dreadful infectious communicable diseases. However, many pathogens of public health importance are highly complex and/or rapidly evolving, posing unique challenges to vaccine development. Several of these challenges include an incomplete understanding of how immunity develops, host and pathogen genetic variability, and an increased societal skepticism regarding vaccine safety. In particular, new high-dimensional omics technologies, aided by bioinformatics, are driving new vaccine development (vaccinomics). Informed by recent insights into pathogen biology, host genetic diversity, and immunology, the increasing use of genomic approaches is leading to new models and understanding of host immune system responses that may provide solutions in the rapid development of novel vaccine candidates.

Graph-theoretical formulation of the generalized epitope-based vaccine design problem

“…Viral escape and immunosuppression mechanisms should also be taken into account, as well as the need to generate a heterogeneous response that activates cytotoxic T cells, helper T cells, and B cells. The considerable differences among human hosts and pathogens, the many unknown factors that govern diseases, and the limited understanding of how the components of the immune system PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY contribute to immunity make it impossible, at present, to create a comprehensive and generally applicable solution for end-to-end vaccine design [56].…”

Nanomedicine for COVID-19: the role of nanotechnology in the treatment and diagnosis of COVID-19

“…In pandemic conditions, mass production of the vaccine is required, usually not possible with conventional vaccine production. For this purpose, the novel methods of vaccine production can be helpful, such as next-generation sequencing, reverse vaccinology or genetic, immune informative, human challenge studies, and nanomedicine [ 104 ]. Interestingly, nanoparticle-based vaccines can induce a higher protective immunity response, rather than conventional antigen-based vaccines.…”

Vaccines and Antivirals: Grand Challenges and Great Opportunities

“…Several substantial issues must be considered for viral vaccine development, at the level of basic virology and efficacy (18). A main barrier in vaccine development is pathogen variability due to: (i) huge genetic diversity among viral types (e.g., >160 different rhinovirus serotypes); (ii) antigenic shift and drift (e.g., influenza virus requiring yearly vaccine formulations); (iii) viruses with high mutation rate (e.g., HIV and HCV); (iv) zoonotic viruses (e.g., SARS-CoV, MERS, SARS-CoV-2, influenza H5N1 and H7N9).…”

“…Understanding host genetic variability is another important challenge in vaccinology as host gene polymorphisms influence vaccine-specific immune responses, a phenomenon demonstrated for HBV, measles, rubella, mumps, smallpox, cytomegalovirus, and influenza virus (18).…”