New Principles of Development of Preparations for Immunoprophylaxis

Russ J Immunol. 1999 Dec;4(4):352-354.

Abstract

In the development of new vaccine the fate of preparation depends on three main factors: potential to decrease morbidity and benefits from vaccine use; the risk of post vaccinal complications and possible damage from vaccination; the cost of vaccine and economic advantages. By basic parameters, dealing with safety and effectiveness, home immunological preparations, first of all vaccines used in framework of vaccination calendar, meet all the requirements of WHO. However, absolutely safe vaccines don't exist in the world. All the above may be an evidence of the need to find new approaches to the development of more improved vaccines. Gene-engineering technology is a revolutionary event in vaccinology, it made it possible to develop recombinant vaccines, possessing weak reactogenity and sufficient effectivity. Anti-idiotypic vaccines didn't go out the sphere of experimental approaches. Any protein vaccine, being introduced to the body, is undergone to digestion. Forming peptides interact with histocompatibility antigens and acquire immunogenic properties. The development of new class vaccines is based on this principle. Synthetic peptide vaccines are safe and low reactogenic. In spite of a large amount of experimental peptide vaccines, there is no still any vaccine of such a type in the practice of health services. Meanwhile, WHO gave recommendations dealing with development and control of peptide vaccines, suggesting that such vaccines will appear in the next future. The same recommendations were given for so called DNA vaccines.