Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mortellaro, Alessandra
• Ricciardi‐Castagnoli, Paola

Titel

From vaccine practice to vaccine science: the contribution of human immunology to the prevention of infectious disease

Ist Teil von

• Immunology and cell biology, 2011-03, Vol.89 (3), p.332-339

Ort / Verlag

United States: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Over the past 50 years, the practice of vaccination has reached the important goal of reducing many of the diseases that afflicted humanity in past centuries. A better understanding of immunological mechanisms underlying the induction of immune protection and the advent of new technology led to improved vaccine preparations based on purified microbial antigens and new adjuvants able to boost both humoral and cellular immune responses. Despite these tremendous advances, much remains to be done. The emergence of new pathogens, the spread of strains resistant to antibiotics and the enormous increase in latent infections are urgently demanding more and more effective vaccines. Understanding the immunological mechanisms that mediate resistance against infections would certainly provide valuable information for the design of new candidate vaccines. In the late 19th and early 20th century much progress was made in our understanding of human immune regulation. However, the focus on the human aspect of immunology was somewhat diverted with the advent of murine models. The March/April 2011 Special Feature on Human Immunology highlights the current and emerging areas of basic and translational research in this field. The reviews cover a range of topics, including human regulatory T cells, T‐cell responses to herpesviruses, T‐cell receptor selection, immune evasion mechanisms, humanized murine models, challenges in vaccine design, and application of a systems biology approach to identify biomarkers of successful vaccines. The web focus on the same topic provides some further reading from across the Nature Publishing Group.