Philip Hunter - Life Science

Improved Prospects for Vaccine Research

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n10/pdf/embor2010136.pdf

Vaccine research is at a crossroads between renewed optimism created by fundamental scientific advances, and pessimism from a series of scientific and publicity setbacks over the past decade. Early successes in the field against acute viral diseases, such as smallpox and polio, raised hopes that more serious infectious diseases could be controlled or even eradicated by vaccination, just as it was once thought that penicillin would eradicate major bacterial diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy.