Technology, vaccine development

Vaccine development involves a substantial investment in time, effort, and resources. Any public or private research and producing facility should allocate huge financial and human rescues when development of vaccine is decided. The cost from research to licensure, the risks inherent in vaccine development (e.g. technological constraints, regulatory approval) and short- or long-term evaluations of scientific and financial results may constrain this activity. In the developing world, the price has been a major impediment to the introduction of new vaccines. 

In addition to the classical approaches described above, scientihc and technological advances in recent years have engendered a number of experimental approaches. Some of these are likely to have major impacts on the future direction of vaccine development. 

On the basis of current research it may be possible to speculate about future directions for vaccine development. For example, controlled-release drug systems are well recognized and have appeared in clinical practice. It seems reasonable to ask if the same technology could be applied to vaccines. What would be ideal is a vaccine that only required a single dose which incorporated that booster dose so often necessary for complete effectiveness. If this in turn was combined with heat stability to overcome the problem of maintaining an effective cold chain for distribution in tropical countries we would be well on the way to providing an ideal product. 

S. pneumoniae has more than 80 sero-types. The current polysaccharide vaccine consists of 23 serotypes and covers about 87% of all pneumococcal diseases in the United States. Current vaccine development is based on conjugate technology and concentrates on die most prevalent 7-9 serotypes. Three multivalent vaccine candidates are in clinical trials. All are based on conjugating the polysaccharide to a T-dependent protein carrier. The results of phase 1 and 11 trials in infants have demonstrated the safety and immnnogenicity of these vaccines. Phase. Ill trials to demonstrate efficacy are in progress and final approval of this vaccine for infant immunization will be by the year 2000. 

Olive C, Toth I, Jackson D (2001) Technological advances in antigen delivery and synthetic peptide vaccine development strategies. Mini Rev Med Chem 1 429438. 

Fraunhofer Vaccine Development Technology. http //www.fraunhofer-cmb.org/ index.cfm act=tech VaccineDevelopment 2004. 

Table 1. Vaccine Developments from Recombinant DNA Technology that have been tested for induction of neutralizing antibodies.

Advances in technology now allow for more directed and coordinated approaches in vaccine development against biological warfare agents and endemic diseases. The development of combination vaccines that eliminate the need for multiple... 

This chapter focuses on one class of technology that is revolutionizing the field of vaccine research, namely application of nanotechnology toward vaccine development. Nanotechnology, which has tfansformed the landscape of dmg... 

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