ABSTRACT
Rafati, 2011). However, and unfortunately, there is a bias between current knowledge on specific immune activation and its translation into real products. Whereas groundbreaking discoveries in the field of pathogenic pattern recognition by dedicated receptor families have been made over the last decades, only few ligands specifically interacting with these receptors have been introduced into clinical studies. One reason for this pause in vaccine development may have been the reluctance of manufacturers to introduce these novel adjuvants into the pipeline; another lies in the fact that they need to be presented to the cells of the immune system in an appropriate way to exploit their full potential. It may even be necessary to include combinations of novel adjuvants in one vaccine formulation to achieve synergistic effects. Nanotechnology may offer the possibility to design novel, more effective vaccines. The nanoparticulate carrier systems should be of appropriate size, have favorable surface parameters for immune recognition, be targeted to antigen-presenting cells (APCs), and be suitable for the inclusion of the respective antigen. In addition, such novel vaccines may prove to have enhanced shelf-life stability, rendering refrigeration unnecessary, and to be applicable by mucosal pathways, allowing for the avoidance of needles for injection and the health risks related. This chapter discusses the current influence of nanotechnology on the development of vaccines. 17.2 The Immune SystemVaccines are meant to elicit an immune response and to create longlasting immune memory against a pathogen-specific antigen by staging an “artificial” infection. To rationally design novel vaccines it is essential to understand the function of the immune system itself. The vertebrate immune system consists of the innate and adaptive branches that cooperate to protect against infection and subsistence of pathogenic agents in the host. How both arms of the immune response are orchestrated is described in the following sections and illustrated in Fig. 17.1.
