DNA Vaccines: Current Perspectives and Research

Dear Colleagues,

Vaccination represents one of civilization’s greatest medical advances. Vaccines save millions of lives, significantly reduce the incidence of a variety of communicable diseases, boost economic growth in low- and middle-income countries, further human productivity, and played an instrumental role in the eradication of smallpox and the near-eradication of polio. However, conventional vaccines suffer from a few shortcomings. Vaccine efficacy can vary by vaccine target, formulation, and age group. Effective vaccines have been difficult to develop for several global infectious disease threats including tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria. Challenges persist in distributing vaccines to the poorest parts of the globe. As such, scientists and clinicians have turned to alternative immunization technologies for the development of next generation vaccines. More than two decades ago, researchers found that the injection of DNA could lead to the induction of an immune response against the encoded antigen in recipients. Since then, interest and excitement in DNA vaccines has exploded. Numerous preclinical studies have supported the use of DNA vaccines to confer protection against several infectious diseases and as an immunotherapeutic approach against cancer. DNA vaccines have been shown to possess several advantages over conventional vaccine approaches: improved immunogenicity, ability to elicit both T and B cell responses, greater stability, improved safety, ease of development and production, ease of transport, cost effectiveness, reduced production times, and rapid modification in response to pathogen mutation and/or the emergence of new diseases. Data accumulated from ongoing clinical studies has demonstrated that DNA vaccines can be as effective as traditional vaccines, bringing DNA vaccines closer to approval for use in the clinic.

This Special Issue invites the contribution of original research articles or reviews that highlight advances and hurdles related to the continued development of DNA vaccines against human disease. This includes, but is not limited to, topics such as novel vaccine formulations, advances in antigen design, vaccine vector optimization, improved methods of delivery, and the development of molecular adjuvants to augment cellular and humoral immune responses. Preclinical approaches to assess vaccine immunogenicity and safety, improved trial design, better methods of quality assurance and quality control, regulatory aspects for manufacturing, and public acceptance of the technology are also critical topics welcomed in this issue.

Dr. Eric Yager
Guest Editor

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• DNA vaccine
• immunogenicity
• molecular adjuvants
• clinical trials
• quality assurance
• prevention
• cancer
• immunotherapy
• infectious disease
• expression vectors