In the last years mRNA- and adenovirus-based vaccine technologies have made great progress. Both approaches enable fast and effective vaccine development, which led to their approval for COVID-19. Accordingly, those technologies have attracted a lot of attention and have moved to the forefront of current vaccine research as the new state of the art. In contrast, poxvirus-based vaccines constituting another promising technology have been left behind and no such COVID-19 vaccine has entered phase III clinical trial testing.

Considering the huge potential of poxvirus-based vaccines and currently ongoing research with great prospects for improvements of this technology, we aim at featuring a collection of articles highlighting recent advances and thus emphasizing the importance of poxvirus-based vaccine research.

We hope this will help to generate renewed interest in this attractive topic.

This research topic will feature articles highlighting current developments, new ideas, strategies, and concepts in poxvirus-based vaccine research. The article collection shall comprise contributions from various fields (such as generation of vectors, genomic modification, regulation of transgene expression, expression of costimulatory factors as well as vaccine manufacturing and delivery systems) and deal with different types of poxviruses (such as vaccinia virus, fowl pox virus, parapoxvirus, canary poxvirus, and others). Another central aim is to engage in a critical assessment of the current state of the art, comparing the pros and cons of poxvirus-based vaccines with other available technologies as well as considering potential synergies. Ultimately, the main objective is to make the importance and potential of poxvirus-based vaccines evident to the reader in the context of current vaccine research and to provide researchers working in this field with an overview of current developments in order to support further improvements of this promising new technology.

• Original research on poxvirus-based vaccine technology including virus generation, genomic modification, regulation of transgene expression, and expression of costimulatory factors.
• Original research reporting on challenges and improvements in vaccine manufacturing and delivery systems concerned with poxviruses.
• Original research reporting on preclinical vaccine research concerned with characterizations of immune responses to poxvirus-based vaccines or reporting technical improvements.
• Original research reporting on early and advanced clinical trials using respective technologies for vaccine development independent of clinical indication.
• (Mini-) Review articles giving an overview of the current state of the art in the field with a view to technical improvements and translational research.
• Perspectives highlighting and discussing critical aspects or technical hurdles as well as future prospects in the field of poxvirus-based vaccine technology.

Dr.Flavia Chiuppesi is co-inventor on a patent application covering the development of a COVID-19 vaccine (PCT/US2021/032,821) using the synthetic MVA platform (sMVA). Dr.Flavia Chiuppesi's family member FW is a co-inventor on a patent application covering the design and construction of the synthetic MVA platform (PCT/US2021/016,247). Synthetic MVA-based COVID-19 vaccine COH04S1 has been licensed by GeoVax Inc.Ralf Amann is the inventor of several Orf Virus related patents which are licensed to Prime Vector
Technologies. Ralf Amann is a founding member and shareholder of Prime Vector Technologies. Prime Vector
Technologies aims to develop Orf Virus-based vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer for human
and veterinary applications. Markus W. Löffler reports personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim for lectures/ consultancy and is listed as a co-inventor on several patents owned by Immatics Biotechnologies, concerning peptides for use in immunotherapies. The other coeditors declare no conflict of interests

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Frontiers in Immunology

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