Methods to Measure Vaccine Immunity

Expert Reviews Ltd, June 2010, Pages: 129

How do you know you are immune after taking a vaccine? What measures are reliable to indicate immunity after vaccination? Such questions are always in the mind of those who work on vaccines in both industry and academia.For a few well-established vaccines, there may be answers to those questions, for example, an antibody titer above a threshold level after tetanus vaccination would be protective against tetanus. However, for many others, especially new vaccines, these questions remain unanswered. The human immune system has evolved through hundreds of thousands of years and is so complex with many components interacting with one another. Thus, it is difficult to identify what immune responses are needed to protect an individual from a certain disease, and ways to induce such immune responses.

Molecular biology and biophysics development has brought forward new and improved techniques that can greatly assist immunologists in studying the human immune system and how to manipulate it. However, as there are so many techniques with different applications, researchers now face with a new question: which methods would be best to measure the immune responses to a new investigational vaccine? In addition, many of these techniques are so complex that not many researchers have a good understanding of the principle, let alone mastering them.

From a vaccinologist’s point of view, it would be very useful to have a summary of available methods to measure vaccine immunity, with each method/group of methods discussed and analyzed by experts in that area. Such a compilation will provide vital information on advantages and disadvantages of each method, and greatly assist vaccine researchers to make an informed decision on their choice of techniques in measuring vaccine immunity. That is also the aim of this Special Focus Issue of the peer-reviewed journal Expert Review of Vaccines.

EDITORIAL:
- Methods to measure vaccine immunity
Vasso Apostolopoulos & Francesco M Marincola

REVIEWS:
- Gene-expression profiling in vaccine therapy and immunotherapy for cancer
Davide Bedognetti, Ena Wang, Mario Roberto Sertoli, Francesco M Marincola

- Antibody-profiling technologies for studying humoral responses to infectious agents
Peter D Burbelo, Kathryn H Ching, Emily R Bush, Brian L Han, Michael J Iadarola

- Vaccine-induced antibody responses in patients with carcinoma
Silvia von Mensdorff-Pouilly

- Methods to measure T-cell responses
Magdalena Plebanski, Maria Katsara, Kuo-ching Sheng, Sue Dong Xiang, Vasso Apostolopoulos

- New flow cytometric assays for monitoring cell-mediated cytotoxicity
Liubov Zaritskaya, Michael R Shurin, Thomas J Sayers, Anatoli M Malyguine

- Evaluation of cellular immune responses in cancer vaccine recipients: lessons from NY-ESO-1
Jonathan Cebon, Ashley Knights, Lisa Ebert, Heather Jackson, Weisan Chen

- Development and application of ‘phosphoflow’ as a tool for immunomonitoring
Sheng Wu, Lei Jin, Luis Vence, Laszlo G Radvanyi

- Surface plasmon resonance for vaccine design and efficacy studies: recent applications and future trends
Stephen Hearty, Paul J Conroy, B Vijayalakshmi Ayyar, Barry Byrne, Richard O’Kennedy

- The challenge of assessing infant vaccine responses in resource-poor settings
Katie L Flanagan, Sarah Burl, Barbara L Lohman-Payne, Magdalena Plebanski

Product Samples

A sample for this product is available. Please Login/Register to download this sample.

Customers who bought this item also bought

• DNA Vaccines
• Antiviral Therapeutics - Technologies, Markets and Companies
• Vaccines in Clinical trials: Cancer
• Innovations and Opportunities in Therapeutic Vaccines: Technology Platforms, Key Players, and Early Pipeline Candidates
• Influenza Vaccines 2012
• Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Market in Asia-Pacific to 2018 - Positive Impact of Government Support Offset by Limited Production Capacity, High Investment and Strict Regulations as Barriers to New Entrants
• Biopharmaceuticals in the US and European Markets
• Needle Free Vaccine Delivery - Technology Market Penetration and Roadmapping
• Animal Biotechnology - Technologies, Markets and Companies
• Cell Therapy - Technologies, Markets and Companies