Future Perspectives for Vaccine Development

The successful development of an anti-fertility vaccine necessitates overcoming obstacles in eliciting an immune response to self species body constituents. The feasibility of accomplishing this task has been demonstrated for certain antigens described in this workshop; however, additional vaccine candidate antigens may yet be revealed from the application of recent advances in molecular biology. Improvements in vaccine design are likely to occur from discovery of more appropriate epitopes on targeting antigens, new carrier molecules for terminating immunological tolerance, expression of vaccine antigens in suitable live vectors, the co-immunization with more than one antigen, the use of safer and/or more effective adjuvants and vehicles, more efficient immunization by targeting antigens to specific lymphoid cells, and the development of superior vaccine delivery systems. Research directed to restricting the immune response to the genital tract and to intentionally reverse the effects of immunization will likely be pursued in the future. All of these areas need to be addressed if vaccines are to be developed that are not only safe and effective but also highly acceptable as birth control methods.