VACCINE TECHNOLOGY: FUTURE
VACCINES
INTRODUCTION
- Vaccination = can reduce the burden of infectious diseases
o Remains the most successful medical intervention: Polio eg has almost disappeared
in the world, measles has been decreased a lot
- Vaccines achieved more than therapeutics did!
UNTIL NOW: EMPIRICAL DEVELOPMENT OF VACCINES
1. Isolate a bacterium or virus
2. Inactivate it: by heat/chemical treatment or attenuate it (several in vitro passages)
3. Injection of the bacterium/virus
Has been applied for several vaccines, but is has issues…
PROBLEMS:
- Vaccine development = lengthy, complex and costly!
- It takes years
HOW IMMUNOLOGY CAN HELP VACCINE DEVELOPMENT
1. Define markers (efficacy/safety)
2. Define mechanisms
Vaccines can work, because they induce our immune system
Knowledge of immunology = to understand & predict the safety and mechanisms of action
So far: empirical method: first vaccinate and then look at immunogenicity
Now: if we look at the IR it is a pleiotropic method
DIFFERENT STAGES
- There are different stages: go from infection or vaccination innate IR activation of APC
adaptive IR activation of B- and T-cells, and Abs also effector systems (cytotoxic T) and
memory cells (essential!)
- Many things happen during the ‘Dark zone’
, o Dark zone: moving from observational to mechanistic approach to predict the
outcome of vaccination
o Dark zone = what happens between vaccination and seeing immunogenicity
W
e
induce these responses, so we want to investigate them better knowledge
of our vaccine can be obtained
- Ag-specific immune response: involves differentiation of cells in lymphoid organs + migration
to effector organs
- All these pathways of immune response start in the injection-site then secondary in the
LN then bone-marrow for long-term memory B-cells + recruitment of plasma cells (Abs)
- Vaccines rely on blood
o Read-outs of IR = limited to peripheral blood hard to get access to the BM or
secondary LNs or peripheral organs (effector site)
Red circles = we cannot get access to them to see
which kind of IR we have induced… we are limited to
peripheral blood
T-CELL POPULATIONS WITH SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS
VACCINES
INTRODUCTION
- Vaccination = can reduce the burden of infectious diseases
o Remains the most successful medical intervention: Polio eg has almost disappeared
in the world, measles has been decreased a lot
- Vaccines achieved more than therapeutics did!
UNTIL NOW: EMPIRICAL DEVELOPMENT OF VACCINES
1. Isolate a bacterium or virus
2. Inactivate it: by heat/chemical treatment or attenuate it (several in vitro passages)
3. Injection of the bacterium/virus
Has been applied for several vaccines, but is has issues…
PROBLEMS:
- Vaccine development = lengthy, complex and costly!
- It takes years
HOW IMMUNOLOGY CAN HELP VACCINE DEVELOPMENT
1. Define markers (efficacy/safety)
2. Define mechanisms
Vaccines can work, because they induce our immune system
Knowledge of immunology = to understand & predict the safety and mechanisms of action
So far: empirical method: first vaccinate and then look at immunogenicity
Now: if we look at the IR it is a pleiotropic method
DIFFERENT STAGES
- There are different stages: go from infection or vaccination innate IR activation of APC
adaptive IR activation of B- and T-cells, and Abs also effector systems (cytotoxic T) and
memory cells (essential!)
- Many things happen during the ‘Dark zone’
, o Dark zone: moving from observational to mechanistic approach to predict the
outcome of vaccination
o Dark zone = what happens between vaccination and seeing immunogenicity
W
e
induce these responses, so we want to investigate them better knowledge
of our vaccine can be obtained
- Ag-specific immune response: involves differentiation of cells in lymphoid organs + migration
to effector organs
- All these pathways of immune response start in the injection-site then secondary in the
LN then bone-marrow for long-term memory B-cells + recruitment of plasma cells (Abs)
- Vaccines rely on blood
o Read-outs of IR = limited to peripheral blood hard to get access to the BM or
secondary LNs or peripheral organs (effector site)
Red circles = we cannot get access to them to see
which kind of IR we have induced… we are limited to
peripheral blood
T-CELL POPULATIONS WITH SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS
