Chapter 4 - Vaccine engineering & structural vaccinology

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on how new technologies in vaccinology are able to achieve rapid development as well as large-scale production of effective and safe vaccines. Vaccines are an important tool for combating pathogens relevant to public health, such as measles virus and tuberculosis. The greatest achievement so far was the eradication of smallpox. Thus, mass vaccination is responsible for preventing morbidity and mortality in millions of people annually. Traditionally, vaccine development has focused on attenuated or inactivated vaccines, but they are expensive methods that require the production of the pathogenic agent/antigen. This, in turn, is a cumbersome and challenging step in vaccine production. Due to advances in technology, the development of vaccines has improved in terms of producing more economical and safer vaccines. From vector production to vaccine design, several strategies can be employed, such as vaccine engineering, reverse vaccinology, vaccines based on virus-like particles, multiepitope vaccines, among others. The use of nanotechnology to the development of vaccines has also been of great applicability, as it allows antigens to be expressed in a particle distribution system, in addition to using proteins rationally designed by structural vaccinology. In addition, bioinformatics techniques combined with the latest next generation of vaccines allow the selection of vaccines candidate in a short period of time, which is relevant in the development of new vaccines against pathogens with pandemic potential.