Research Progress of New Tuberculosis Vaccines and Vaccine Design for Intracellular Pathogens
A special issue of Vaccines (ISSN 2076-393X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 7 July 2026 | Viewed by 7
Special Issue Editors
Interests: immunology and immunotherapy; vaccine; mycobacterium tuberculosis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: pathogenesis of tuberculosis (TB); develop novel anti-TB drugs targeting alternate pathways of mycobacterium tuberculosis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Intracellular parasitic bacteria, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. Tuberculosis), Rickettsia, Chlamydia, Salmonella Typhi, Legionella, and Listeria, pose significant threats to global health due to their ability to evade host immune responses by residing within host cells. For instance, tuberculosis (TB) caused an estimated 10.8 million new cases and 1.25 million deaths in 2023 (WHO, 2024). The limitations of current vaccines—most notably the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine, which provides only partial protection against adult pulmonary TB—underscore the urgent need for innovative vaccine development strategies tailored to the unique biology of intracellular pathogens.
Recent advancements in data-driven technologies, including machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and high-throughput omics, have revolutionized vaccine design and development. For example, AI-driven platforms can analyze genomic and proteomic datasets to identify conserved protective antigens across intracellular pathogens, while the structural vaccinology and reverse vaccinology (RV) leverage atomic-resolution structures of pathogen proteins to design immunogens with enhanced efficacy. Additionally, advances in adjuvant design, mRNA/lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems, and single-cell immune profiling have opened new frontiers in achieving robust, long-lasting cellular immunity.
This Special Issue aims to highlight cutting-edge research on vaccine development for intracellular pathogens, with a focus on TB as a model system but extending to other medically relevant species. We invite original research articles and reviews that address the following themes:
- Novel protective antigen discovery;
- Host-pathogen interaction;
- Immunodominant or multiepitope validation;
- Vaccine evaluation models.
By integrating traditional immunological insights with emerging data-driven technologies, this Special Issue aims to enhance our understanding of protective immunity against intracellular pathogens and expedite the development of next-generation vaccines for TB and related diseases.
Dr. Wenping Gong
Dr. Ashok Aspatwar
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.
Keywords
- intracellular bacteria
- tuberculosis
- innate/adaptive immunity
- vaccine design
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