Vaccine and adjuvant design for emerging viruses mutations, deletions, segments and signaling

Vaccination is currently the mosteffective strategy to medically controlviral diseases. However, developingvaccines is a long and expensive processand traditional methods, such as attenuatingwild-type viruses by serial passage,may not be suitable for all virusesand may lead to vaccine safety considerations,particularly in the case of thevaccination of particular patient groups,such as the immunocompromised andthe elderly. In particular, developing vaccinesagainst emerging viral pathogensadds a further level of complexity, asthey may only be administered to smallgroups of people or only in response toa specific event or threat, limiting ourability to study and evaluate responses.In this commentary, we discuss hownovel techniques may be used to engineera new generation of vaccine candidatesas we move toward a more targetedvaccine design strategy, driven by ourunderstanding of the mechanisms ofviral pathogenesis, attenuation and thesignaling events which are required todevelop a lasting, protective immunity.We will also briefly discuss the potentialfuture role of vaccine adjuvants, whichcould be used to bridge the gap betweenvaccine safety and lasting immunityfrom a single vaccination.