Old And New Challenges In The Development Of Vaccines To Protect Against Infectious Diseases

About this Research Topic

Background

Vaccines are one of the most effective tools in protecting humans from infectious diseases globally and the only health intervention capable of eradicating a disease altogether. It is estimated that the global use of vaccines is preventing 2 to 3 million infectious disease deaths every year. Vaccines to prevent bacterial and viral disease have shown not only direct benefits but also indirect ones such as providing herd immunity or having a significant preventative impact on the generation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Despite these enormous positive public health impacts, the complexity of designing and developing safe and effective vaccines, licensure and recommendation requirements, access and global distribution are not widely appreciated by the general public or even health care professionals. In addition, with an increasing understanding of the fundamental protective vaccine-induced immune responses, we are now moving into the area of “designer vaccines” with novel technologies and approaches to not only protect against infectious diseases but also cancer.

In this Research Topic, we aim to address the general knowledge gap with regard to vaccines and to provide a comprehensive resource for researchers and health professionals with an interest in infectious diseases and vaccines. Furthermore, we aim to highlight new areas of research that will enable improved design and development of infectious disease vaccines that have eluded us in the past. Finally, we aim to highlight new approaches to protect the most vulnerable, neonates, from deadly diseases by maternal immunization.

We propose to invite submissions summarizing the history of vaccine impact with emphasis on describing the benefit-risk of vaccines, challenges in vaccine recommendations and global access or implementation. We also look for submissions that address challenges in vaccine development that will highlight the multidisciplinary approach to complex vaccine development. In addition to these background submissions, we anticipate submissions that will focus on recent discoveries improving our understanding of protective host immune responses to vaccination, or novel vaccine antigen designs or delivery modalities enabling the development of infectious disease vaccines to protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB), or other bacterial diseases associated with antimicrobial resistance such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) or Clostridium difficile (C. diff). Finally, we propose to invite submissions that address vaccine protection of neonates from vaccine preventable devastating diseases such as Group B streptococcus (GBS).

This Research Topic is open to original articles, research notes, and reviews.

Topic Editor Dr. Kathrin Jansen is employed by company Pfizer. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Keywords: Bacterial And Viral Vaccines, Maternal Immunization, Vaccine Challenges, Vaccine Benefits, Infectious Diseases

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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