ABSTRACT
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Navarra, Pamplona (Spain)
Carlos Gamazo
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Navarra, Pamplona (Spain)
1. Introduction
Until recently, most vaccines presented antigens according to the same principals as they were a hundred years ago. These vaccines consist of the whole microorganism, alive or inactivated (bacterins), or attenuated toxins. Although these have proved successful, several drawbacks related with the safety (residual virulence, undesirable side effects) and the relatively poor efficacy against more challenging diseases (AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis) have limited their use.
