Research and Markets: Methods to Measure Vaccine Immunity

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0b4795/methods_to_measure) has announced the addition of Expert Reviews Ltd's new report "Methods to Measure Vaccine Immunity" to their offering.

How do you know you are immune after taking a vaccine? What measures are reliable to indicate immunity after vaccination? Such questions are always in the mind of those who work on vaccines in both industry and academia. For a few well-established vaccines, there may be answers to those questions, for example, an antibody titer above a threshold level after tetanus vaccination would be protective against tetanus. However, for many others, especially new vaccines, these questions remain unanswered. The human immune system has evolved through hundreds of thousands of years and is so complex with many components interacting with one another. Thus, it is difficult to identify what immune responses are needed to protect an individual from a certain disease, and ways to induce such immune responses.

Molecular biology and biophysics development has brought forward new and improved techniques that can greatly assist immunologists in studying the human immune system and how to manipulate it. However, as there are so many techniques with different applications, researchers now face with a new question: which methods would be best to measure the immune responses to a new investigational vaccine? In addition, many of these techniques are so complex that not many researchers have a good understanding of the principle, let alone mastering them.

From a vaccinologists point of view, it would be very useful to have a summary of available methods to measure vaccine immunity, with each method/group of methods discussed and analyzed by experts in that area. Such a compilation will provide vital information on advantages and disadvantages of each method, and greatly assist vaccine researchers to make an informed decision on their choice of techniques in measuring vaccine immunity. That is also the aim of this Special Focus Issue of the peer-reviewed journal Expert Review of Vaccines.

Key Topics Covered:

EDITORIAL:

• Methods to measure vaccine immunity

REVIEWS:

• Gene-expression profiling in vaccine therapy and immunotherapy for cancer
• Antibody-profiling technologies for studying humoral responses to infectious agents
• Vaccine-induced antibody responses in patients with carcinoma
• Methods to measure T-cell responses
• New flow cytometric assays for monitoring cell-mediated cytotoxicity
• Evaluation of cellular immune responses in cancer vaccine recipients: lessons from NY-ESO-1
• Development and application of phosphoflow as a tool for immunomonitoring
• Surface plasmon resonance for vaccine design and efficacy studies: recent applications and future trends
• The challenge of assessing infant vaccine responses in resource-poor settings

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0b4795/methods_to_measure.