Progress in Vaccine Development for Infectious Diseases

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ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Progress in Vaccine Development for Infectious Diseases, organized by Drs. Katalin Kariko, Karin Loré and Norbert Pardi. The conference will be held in Breckenridge, Colorado from June 1-4, 2022. Vaccines are the cornerstones of modern medicine, saving millions of lives every year. Due to the fast progress in better understanding the biology of certain pathogens coupled with recent technological advances in the fields of immunology, structural biology and nanomaterial development, science has entered a new golden age of vaccinology. This conference will focus on presenting state-of-the-art vaccine technologies (mRNA, viral vectors, protein nanoparticles, adjuvants), recent advancements in understanding (and potentially manipulating) vaccine-induced immune responses and key aspects of structure-based antigen design that allows us to develop better vaccine immunogens. Combining these overlapping and strongly synergistic aspects of vaccine development will foster collaborations between conference participants that may result in novel, very effective vaccines in the future. Moreover, most of the currently used vaccines have been developed by empirical research without the involvement of immunologists, structural biologists or biomedical engineers. However, it has become evident in recent years that the empirical approach is not sufficient for successful vaccine development against hard-to-target pathogens. To successfully combat these pathogens, the community needs to better understand how to induce protective immune responses against them and need to develop better adjuvants, vaccine platforms or immunization schemes. This "combined" approach requires a tight cooperation between interdisciplinary groups of scientists who will all be in attendance at this Keystone Symposia conference. Finally, the program includes a session focused on vaccine diplomacy, to address key challenges regarding vaccine production and distribution and advocate for a more equitable system for worldwide vaccine distribution.