Herpes Simplex Virus Infection, Immunity, and Vaccine Development

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce this Special Issue, dedicated to “Herpes Simplex Virus Infection, Immunity, and Vaccine Development”. Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) infections affect people around the world, with HSV-1 and HSV-2 causing significant morbidity through recurrent oral–facial, ocular, and genital lesions.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive overview of herpes simplex infection and immunity in animal models and humans. This will include multi-omics data to better phenotype, differentiate, and classify immune responses, identify the immunological and virological factors contributing to recurrent infection and disease, and understand immune regulation, immune evasion, immune checkpoints, and immuno-regulatory pathways.

Despite decades of pre-clinical and clinical research, no licensed HSV vaccines or immunotherapeutic agents are currently available. This Special Issue includes the current landscape, challenges, and future directions for optimal HSV vaccines and immunotherapies. It will include the complex challenges in identifying (1) underlying immune effectors of protective immunity, (2) the selection of protective B- and T-cell antigens/epitopes, targets to enhance efficacy and durability of immune protection, (3) antigen delivery systems, and (4) effective immunization strategies against this persistent virus. However, recent advances have renewed hope in the field of HSV vaccines or immunotherapy, making this an excellent time to assess past and current pre-clinical and clinical progress, as well as outline future directions.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and commentaries that address various aspects of herpes infection, immunity, pre-clinical and clinical HSV vaccines, and immunotherapies. We encourage submissions on the following topics:

• Herpes simplex infection and immunity in animal models and humans;
• Multi-omics data to better phenotype, differentiate, and classify immune responses;
• Immunological and virological factors contributing protection or exacerbating recurrent herpes infection and disease;
• Immune regulation, immune evasion, immune checkpoints, and immuno-regulatory pathways;
• Pre-clinical and clinical evaluation of HSV vaccine and immunotherapeutic candidates;
• Innovative vaccine and immunotherapeutic platforms, adjuvants, and delivery systems;
• Identification of protective B- and T-cell antigens/epitopes, targets to enhance efficacy and durability of immune protection;
• Innate and adaptive immunological correlates of protection;
• Therapeutic vaccination strategies for individuals with established HSV;
• Mucosal immunity considerations in HSV vaccine design;
• Regulatory challenges for HSV vaccines.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to this important field.

Prof. Dr. Lbachir BenMohamed
Dr. Swayam Prakash
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV)
• protection, humoral, and cellular immune mechanisms
• vaccine development
• HSV-1
• HSV-2
• immunization strategies