A new generation of technological vaccines protect against many infectious diseases. This book describes synthetic peptide-based vaccine prototypes – the future of vaccination. Production of peptides becomes simple using automatic synthesizers. Peptides are weak immunogen and need adjuvants to provide an effective autoimmune response, which is why peptide antigens are conjugated with biopolymers and loaded with nanoparticles. The book illustrates the use of peptides vaccine systems and makes predictions of future development not only for infectious diseases, but also for cancers and brain diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and psychiatric diseases. Key Features Summarizes current studies on technological vaccines Describes the uses of vaccines for the prevention of brain diseases Reviews the ways different polymers are used to enhance vaccine efficacy

A new generation of technological vaccines protect against many infectious diseases. This book describes synthetic peptide-based vaccine prototypes – the future of vaccination. Production of peptides becomes simple using automatic synthesizers. Peptides are weak immunogen and need adjuvants to provide an effective autoimmune response, which is why peptide antigens are conjugated with biopolymers and loaded with nanoparticles. The book illustrates the use of peptides vaccine systems and makes predictions of future development not only for infectious diseases, but also for cancers and brain diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and psychiatric diseases. Key Features Summarizes current studies on technological vaccines Describes the uses of vaccines for the prevention of brain diseases Reviews the ways different polymers are used to enhance vaccine efficacy

Hands-on experts describe in step-by-step detail the key methodologies of contemporary peptide synthesis and illustrate their numerous applications. The techniques presented include protocols for chemical ligation, the synthesis of cyclic and phosphotyrosine-containing peptides, lipoamino acid- and sugar-conjugated peptides, and peptide purification and analyses. Additional chapters detail methodologies and instrumentation for high-throughput peptide synthesis, many different applications of peptides as novel research tools and biological probes, and the design and application of fluorescent substrate-based peptides that can be used to determine the selectivity and activity of peptidases. A practical guide to the identification of proteins using mass spectrometric analyses of peptide mixtures is also included.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context, CONTEXT 2005, held in Paris, France in July 2005. The 42 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 120 submissions. The papers presented deal with the interdisciplinary topic of modeling and using context from various points of view, ranging through cognitive science, formal logic, artifical intelligence, computational intelligence, philosophical and psychological aspects, and information processing. Highly general philosophical and theoretical issues are complemented by specific applications in various fields.

From the latest vaccination evidence, recommendations, and protocols . . . to new vaccine development and the use of vaccines in reducing disease, Plotkin's Vaccines, 8th Edition, covers every aspect of vaccination. Now completely revised and updated from cover to cover, this award-winning text continues to provide reliable information from global authorities, offering a complete understanding of each disease, as well as the latest knowledge of both existing vaccines and those currently in research and development. Described by Bill Gates as "an indispensable guide to the enhancement of the well-being of our world," Plotkin's Vaccines is a must-have reference for current, authoritative information in this fast-moving field. - Contains all-new chapters on COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy, and non-specific effects of vaccines, as well as significantly revised content on new vaccine technologies such as mRNA vaccines, emerging vaccines, and technologies to improve immunization. - Presents exciting new data on evolution of adjuvants across the centuries, dengue vaccines, human papillomavirus vaccines, respiratory syncytial virus vaccines, tuberculosis vaccines, and zoster vaccines. - Provides up-to-date, authoritative information on vaccine production, available preparations, efficacy and safety, and recommendations for vaccine use, with rationales and data on the impact of vaccination programs on morbidity and mortality. - Provides complete coverage of each disease, including clinical characteristics, microbiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as epidemiology and public health and regulatory issues. - Keeps you up to date with information on each vaccine, including its stability, immunogenicity, efficacy, duration of immunity, adverse events, indications, contraindications, precautions, administration with other vaccines, and disease-control strategies. - Covers vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine science, and licensed vaccine products, as well as product technologies and global regulatory and public health issues. - Analyzes the cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness of different vaccine options. - Helps you clearly visualize concepts and objective data through an abundance of tables and figures. - Enhanced eBook version included with purchase. Your enhanced eBook allows you to access all of the text, figures, and references from the book on a variety of devices.

In this book, a summary and update of the most important areas of cell-penetrating peptides (CPP) research are presented, while raising relevant questions for further development. The CPP sequences are presented and discussed throughout the book. The methods for testing CPP mechanisms are discussed in detail. Various approaches for the testing of endocytotic pathways of CPP uptake are also described. Different CPP uptake experiments are compared since it is becoming clear that it is often best to apply several methods in a complementary manner in order to most comprehensively evaluate CPP uptake mechanisms due to the complexity of these processes. A brief summary of functionality issues of CPPs, both in vitro and in vivo, is discussed. Therapeutic potential of CPPs and commercial developments are discussed. The present, second edition of this book is the updated and expanded version of the first edition, published in 2019. The development of the field of cell-penetrating peptides in these five years has been obvious and exciting. This second edition of the book has been partly reorganized and comprehensively expanded with the exciting research in 2019-2023. Around 2500 novel scientific articles have become available, most of them are reviewed in the second edition. Additional rapidly growing areas of high impact presented in this second edition are therapeutic developments (Chapter 16) and delivery of oligonucleotides and proteins/peptides (Chapters 5 and 6) including novel reports on genome editing with CPP assistance. Also, several additional examples are available now on clinical trials using CPPs (Chapter 15). The book is written for researchers and students in the field.

Immunological Recognition of Peptides in Medicine and Biology gives a state-of-the-art overview on the use of peptides and peptide-ligand interactions, and the critical role they play in recognition patterns for the regulation of various biological functions. A wide range of applications are discussed, including some experimental preclinical ones such as epitope mapping, peptide libraries, and production of amino acid-specific antibodies and their therapeutic use in oncology and infectious disease vaccines. Each chapter also includes step-by-step protocols to aid in actual experiments. Several alternative techniques and strategies are discussed by different authors offering the reader an opportunity to select the most favorable application for a specific biological problem.

Since variolation, conventional approaches to vaccine development are based on live-attenuated, inactivated or purified pathogen-derived components. However, effective vaccines against global health threats such as HIV, parasite infections and tumors are difficult to achieve. On the other hand, synthetic vaccines based on immunogenic epitopes offer advantages over traditional vaccines since they are chemically defined antigens free from deleterious effects. Additionally, in contrast to live-attenuated vaccines, they do not revert to virulence in immunocompromised subjects, and different from genetic vaccines, they do not involve ethical questions. Traditional vaccines contain PAMPs and induce strong immune responses, while recombinant vaccines are less potent. In spite of the immunogenic weakness previously attributed to epitope-based vaccines a synthetic vaccine containing a 17 amino acid-epitope of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa Type IV pilus exceeded the protective potential of its cognate protein composed of 115 amino acids. Therefore, the efficacy yield of a synthetic vaccine can be potentiated by using the proper combination of target epitopes. Recent advances in adjuvant development, immunogen platforms for DNA vaccines and viral vectors also contributed to optimize immunogenicity. Another constraint to the use of epitope vaccines was their restriction to some MHC or HLA phenotypes. However, epitopes containing 20 or less amino acids of Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania donovani bind to multiple HLA-DR and MHC receptors. Thus synthetic epitope vaccines may better meet the requirements of the regulatory agencies since they have lower costs and are easier to produce. The classical experimental approach for the development of an epitope-based vaccine involves the use of recombinant domains or overlapping 15-mer peptides spanning the full length of the target antigen, and the analysis of the induced antibody and/or T cell immune responses in vitro or in vivo. On the other hand, in silico tools can select peptides that are more likely to contain epitopes, reducing the number of sequence candidates. T cell epitope prediction dates back to 1980s, when the first algorithm was developed based on the identification of amphipathic helical regions on protein antigens. Since then, new methods based on MHC peptide-binding motifs or MHC-binding properties have been developed. The recent reverse vaccinology concept uses high-throughput genome sequencing and bioinformatics tools to identify potential targets of immune responses. The feasibility of this approach was shown for the first time in the design of a vaccine against Neisseria meningitides that is now in phase III clinical trials. In addition, different computational tools allow the determination of crucial gene(s) through comparative analyses between different pathogenic strains Alternatively, carbohydrates have been considered as key targets in developing safe and effective vaccines to combat cancer, bacterial and viral infections. Tumor associated carbohydrate antigens can be coupled covalently to protein carriers to target MHC receptors and improve immunogenicity and have reached already pre-clinical and clinical studies. In light of the recent availability of genomic tools, we believe that in the near future an increasing number of vaccine candidates, composed of defined epitopes, will be available for synthetic vaccines showing improved protection.

The discovery of the human T cell leukemia virus type I in the late 1970s heralded a new era in retrovirology. For the first time, it was demonstrated that a retrovirus could play a role in the development of a human disease, in this case adult T cell leukemia (ATL). Several years later, the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic began, and it was dem- strated that a retrovirus, originally designated the human T cell lymp- tropic virus type 3, was the causal agent of this syndrome. This virus, later named the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), has since been extensively studied in terms of its pathogenesis as well as its ability to elicit immune responses. In that time, a tremendous amount of information has been obtained about the virus. Although recent drug regimens have been useful in significantly lowering viral loads and perhaps maintaining an asymptomatic state among individuals infected with HIV-1, an established “cure” for AIDS eludes us. In addition, the effective drug therapies are very expensive, and are not available to infected people in the third world, where greater than 90% of new infections occur. Furthermore, the development of viral resistance against the drug therapies is an additional concern. Despite extensive study, no effective vaccine has been developed. One of the problems in developing an effective vaccine against HIV-1 is the ability of the virus, particularly in the immunogenic envelop glycoprotein, to undergo amino acid hypervariability.

Building upon the success of the Handbook of Laboratory Animal Science and completing Volumes I and II of the Second Edition, Handbook of Laboratory Animal Science, Second Edition: Animal Models, Volume III provides the final component to present a comprehensive overview of animal models in biomedical research.As with Volume II, this new volume add