Vaccine technology future

Rabinovich NR, Mclnnes P, Klein DL, Hall BF. Vaccine technologies View to the future. Science. 1994 265 1401— 1404. 

Gliick R, Metcalfe IC. New technology platforms in the development of vaccines for the future. Vaccine 2002 20 B10. 

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. 

A good example of the recent and future evolution of viral vaccines and their concomitant issues of technology, complexity and competition, is the rotavirus vaccine. This is of great relevance for the prevention of diarrhea, which is often deadly in developing countries (half a million deaths per year) and has high hospitalization costs in rich countries. After successive failures of monovalent vaccines, multivalent vaccines based on the reshuffling of rotavirus strains comprising the attenuation properties of animal strains with the external capsid of human serotypes were developed. 

EUis, R.W. and Conley, A.J. (1991). Recombinant-derived vaccines models for future development. In Recombinant DNA Technology and Applications. A.Prokop, R.K. Bajpai, and C.Ho, eds. (New York McGraw-Hill), pp. 191 -231. 

We are making good progress on developing recombinant vaccines for certain high-threat toxins. In the future, protection of our soldiers from toxin threats will be limited only by our willingness to use the vaccines. Similar technology allows us to produce human antibodies, which will eventually... 

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