Smallpox Vaccines: Looking Beyond the Next Generation

摘要

Smallpox may be gone, but poxvirus research―spurred by the specter of bioterrorism―is thriving. In the May issue of the Journal of Virology, a team of U.S. Army researchers reports that a new DNA vaccine can protect monkeys from what would otherwise be a lethal dose of mon-keypox. The results are "very encouraging," says Mariano Esteban, a poxvirus researcher at the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid, Spain, adding that they could prelude a safer generation of smallpox vaccines for humans to replace the old standbys from the smallpox eradication era. But DNA vaccines could be preempted: By the time they are developed, a much safer derivative of the current vaccine, called modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), may be in production.