VACCINE INFORMATICS
Global public
health has dramatically increased due to the successful and effective implementation of immunization programs that utilize major
infectious disease vaccines. Among the most famous vaccines are Jenner's
smallpox vaccine, Pasteur's
rabies and
anthrax vaccines, and the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (or Bacille Calmette-Guérin, BCG)
vaccine for tuberculosis. The positive effect of
vaccination on public
health is highlighted by the success of the global
smallpox eradication campaign, and the scope of
vaccine development for the prevention and treatment of various diseases in both humans and animals continues to grow on a daily basis.
Vaccine informatics is an emerging field that develops and applies computational, statistical, and
bioinformatics methods to study
vaccine and vaccination-related issues in different stages of research, development, clinical trial, postlicensure clinical uses, and surveillance. The field began centuries ago with widespread
vaccination monitoring to determine
vaccine safety and clinical applicability. Yet it was not until the growth of the
immunoinformatics field in the 1980s that
vaccine informatics emerged as an important area of study, when many methods were developed and implemented to predict T-cell and B-cell immune epitopes. These T-cell and B-cell immune epitopes were identified as potential
vaccine targets and were recognized as crucial to understanding basic protective immunity. In the 1990s,
bioinformatics became an emerging science after more and more DNA, RNA, and protein sequences were identified and studied. In the postgenomics and
information era, the application of
bioinformatics tools within the vaccinology field has fostered dramatic progression for both literature and data on
vaccine informatics, creating the potential to revolutionize every aspect of the pre- and postlicensure
vaccine enterprise.
High Impact List of Articles
Relevant Topics in Medical