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Nature 441, 161 (11 May 2006) | doi:10.1038/441161a; Published online 10 May 2006

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Vaccines: Engineering immune evasion

John R. Mascola1

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One obstacle to realizing the promise of viral vectors for vaccine delivery is pre-existing immunity to such vectors. An adroit application of structure-based design points to a way around that problem.

There are still no vaccines against such devastating and widespread diseases as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Because the traditional approach of live-attenuated vaccination is not feasible for most diseases, scientists have turned to molecularly engineered viruses that contain pathogen-specific gene inserts.

  1. John R. Mascola is at the Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 40 Convent Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-3005, USA.
    Email: jmascola@nih.gov