DNA Vaccines — Designer Vaccines for the 21st Century

Over the past 100 years, the development and widespread use of vaccines against infectious agents has been one of the triumphs of medical science. One reason for the success of these vaccines is that they excel at inducing antibodies, which are the principal agents of immune protection against most viruses and bacteria. There are, however, exceptions, including medically important intracellular organisms like Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the malarial parasite, Leishmania major, and possibly the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in which protection depends more on cell-mediated immunity than on the induction of antibodies (humoral immunity).All currently licensed vaccines, whether they are prepared . . .