Abstract
Some of the most effective vaccines used for preventing viral diseases are based on live attenuated viruses. Although this approach has been very effective against highly infectious pathogens (e.g., viruses causing smallpox, poliomyelitis, and measles) and has been the basis for some of the most effective experimental vaccines in animal models (e.g., live attenuated simian immunodeficiency virus), development of analogous replication-competent human vaccine candidates is not practical for some viral pathogens (e.g., HIV, Ebola virus) because vaccination with live virus presents significant risks. An alternative pathway is being developed that involves the use of replication-competent viral vectors, and a growing number of viruses have been used as platforms to make experimental vaccines. As these candidates are advanced and tested in nonhuman primates or in human clinical trials, researchers will be able to characterize how the biological properties of different vaccine delivery vectors modulate innate and adaptive immune responses. This chapter includes a brief description of available viral vector technologies and their contribution to vaccine design, using human immunodeficiency virus vaccine development as a case study.
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