title: Improved vaccines through targeted manipulation of the body's immunological risk-assessment?
abstract: Recent advances have highlighted the outstanding role of the innate immune system for instructing adaptive immunity. Translating this knowledge into successful immunotherapies like vaccines, however, has proven to be a difficult task. This essay is based on the hypothesis that immune responses are tightly scaled to the infectious threat posed by a given microbial stimulus. A meticulous immunological risk-assessment process is therefore instrumental for eliciting well-balanced responses and maintaining immune homeostasis. The immune system makes fine distinctions, for example, between live and dead bacteria, or pathogenic and non-pathogenic microorganisms. Here, I discuss recent evidence for some of the mechanisms underlying these distinctions and speculate on strategies for therapeutically targeting the immunological risk-assessment machinery.
authors: Department of Infectious Diseases and Pulmonary Medicine, Charité University Hospital Berlin, Berlin, Germany. leif-erik.sander@charite.de
authors: Leif E
authors: LE
authors: Sander
mesh_terms: D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000276:immunology; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines / Q000276:immunology; D006090:Gram-Negative Bacteria / Q000276:immunology / Q000502:physiology; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000502:physiology*; D050296:Microbial Viability / Q000276:immunology; D014611:Vaccination
chemical_list: D000276:Adjuvants, Immunologic; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines