From Empiricism to Rational Design: a Personal Perspective of the Evolution of Vaccine Development

Overview

Journal Nat Rev Immunol

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 2014 Jun 14

PMID 24925139

Citations 90

Authors

Ennio De Gregorio

Rino Rappuoli

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Vaccination, which is the most effective medical intervention that has ever been introduced, originated from the observation that individuals who survived a plague or smallpox would not get the disease twice. To mimic the protective effects of natural infection, Jenner - and later Pasteur - inoculated individuals with attenuated or killed disease-causing agents. This empirical approach inspired a century of vaccine development and the effective prophylaxis of many infectious diseases. From the 1980s, several waves of new technologies have enabled the development of novel vaccines that would not have been possible using the empirical approach. The technological revolution in the field of vaccination is now continuing, and it is delivering novel and safer vaccines. In this Timeline article, we provide our views on the transition from empiricism to rational vaccine design.

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