A new approach to vaccination: polymorphic vaccines for RNA viruses

Conventional vaccines consist of a very large number of virtually identical molecules. While these have been extremely effective for prevention against viral diseases, development of vaccines against rapidly changing pathogens such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus has proved to be more difficult. We propose a new approach to vaccination against these rapidly mutating pathogens by the use of vaccines consisting of a set of highly polymorphic recombinant molecules.