ABSTRACT
Rapid development of effective vaccine has been one of the cornerstones of outbreak (including epidemic and pandemic) preparedness. Since its inception, vaccine technology and immunization saved billions of lives. Fostered by the knowledge discovery in biological and computational sciences, the basic concepts of vaccine designing have also evolved significantly in the past few decades. The advent of whole-genome sequencing complemented with big-data analysis platforms eventuated omics-based vaccine designing—often referred to as reverse vaccinology (RV). Adopting systemic approach toward the proteome and structural data, RV accomplishes comprehensive profiling of immunogenicity. With the advancement in artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms, a number of prediction tools have been introduced for precise and accurate prediction of immune-recognition patterns that can be exploited for designing novel vaccine candidates. Considering the fact that vaccines are available for only a few of the infectious diseases, there is an earnest need of rapid development of vaccines for several fatal and emerging pathogens, which can be immensely accentuated by RV. With specific emphasis on immunoinformatics and artificial intelligence algorithms used in it, within the scope of this chapter a comprehensive purview of RV and its application is provided.
ABSTRACT
As the COVID-19 is still growing throughout the globe, a thorough investigation into the specific immunopathology of SARS-CoV-2, its interaction with the host immune system and pathogen evasion mechanism may provide a clear picture of how the pathogen can breach the host immune defenses in elderly patients and patients with comorbid conditions. Such studies will also reveal the underlying mechanism of how children and young patients can withstand the disease better. The study of the immune defense mechanisms and the prolonged immune memory from patients population with convalescent plasma may help in designing a suitable vaccine candidate not only for the current outbreak but also for similar outbreaks in the future. The vital drug candidates, which are being tested as potential vaccines or therapeutics against COVID-19, include live attenuated vaccine, inactivated or killed vaccine, subunit vaccine, antibodies, interferon treatment, repurposing existing drugs, and nucleic acid-based vaccines. Several organizations around the world have fast-tracked the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, and some drugs already went to phase III of clinical trials. Hence, here, we have tried to take a quick glimpse of the development stages of vaccines or therapeutic approaches to treat this deadly disease.