Vaccination is regarded as one of the biggest triumphs in the history of medicine. We are living in the most successful period of vaccine development. The accumulation of multidisciplinary knowledge and the investment of massive funding have enabled the development of vaccines against many infectious diseases as well as other diseases including malignant tumors. The paradigm of clinical vaccine...

Several interesting new vaccine-related studies were presented at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this year. Transmitted viruses appear to be derived from cell-free virus rather than cell-associated virus, at least in men who have sex with men. Follow-up studies from the Step (HIV Vaccine Trials Network 502) trial indicated that if individuals mounted certain va...

Developing effective and safe vaccines is urgently needed to prevent infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). The inactivated SARS-CoV vaccine may be the first one available for clinical use because it is easy to generate; however, safety is the main concern. The spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV is the major inducer of neutralizing antibodies, and th...

The dengue viruses are estimated to cause several hundred thousand cases of dengue fever, dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome annually. Attempts to prevent the infection focus on the development of a vaccine that would protect against all four serotypes of the dengue virus. Various biotechnological approaches are being explored, including the use of live attenuated or inactivate...

The current explosion in new high-throughput technologies arising from microbial and animal genomics studies is enabling the analysis of the genome, transcriptome, and proteome and offers the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the molecular pathways underlying pathogen biology, the host immune system, and host-pathogen interactions. These new tools can be applied to veterinary pathog...

For the past two decades, scientists have aggressively pursued the development of a vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The magnitude of this effort is unprecedented in the history of infectious diseases. However, difficulties in finding promising candidate vaccines have limited the number of clinical efficacy trials. The macaque model is well suited for the evaluation of potent...

Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis in domestic livestock and wildlife is a significant problem in many countries worldwide. Wildlife reservoirs of tuberculosis confound programs for tuberculosis eradication from domestic livestock. Successful vaccination against tuberculosis in domestic animals or wildlife could contribute to tuberculosis eradication. Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has b...

Information derived from the complete genome sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis makes it possible to develop a range of new vaccine candidates. Strategies currently under investigation include construction of whole cell live attenuated mycobacterial vaccines, as well as the use of individual antigens delivered by a variety of subunit vaccination procedures. Fundamental questions associated ...