Rapid Synthetic DNA Vaccine Development for Emerging Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Abstract

Vaccines are considered among the top feats of modern medicine, saving millions of lives by inducing immunity to a number of infectious pathogens. As the next generation of vaccines seeks to address ever more complicated targets including cancer, innovative technologies like synthetic DNA vaccination that circumvent some of the issues associated with traditional vaccines will likely prove critical. In addition, compounding factors that may influence immune outcome such as the microbiome must also be studied in greater detail. Recent clinical studies have suggested that the presence of certain bacteria in the gut was associated with favorable outcomes in patients receiving immunogenic chemotherapy. Other studies have also shown that a dysbiosis or overrepresentation of other bacteria strains was negatively associated with favorable outcome. Further work needs to be done to more fully understand the influence that the microbiome exerts on the immune system and vice versa, and the significance of this relationship in designing future therapies.