On the need for, and the delivery of, cross-protective vaccines

The rhinoviruses that are instrumental in causing about one-third of the outbreaks of the common cold present us with some 100 or so serotypes whose convalescent sera do not cross-neutralise. A similar situation prevails with the organism that causes gonorrhoea. Both the HIV and the protozoan causing malaria are notorious for their ability to evade the immune system by changes to their antigenic profile. Similarly, we face continual changes in the antigenic determinants of the influenza virus. It is clear that we require vaccine for these diseases that provide protection against a wide variety of basic variants. This can be achieved, as was shown by Arvind Kumar, who, in his PhD project, generated monoclonal antibodies to cross-reacting yet neutralising epitopes of a number of rhinoviruses. Such antibodies also neutralised some Coxsackie viruses as well as some of the types of Poliovirus. This demonstration of feasibility will be explored further in my paper with a view to arriving at a general approach to the production of vaccines whose humoral and cellular responses can neutralise a wide cross-section of serotype variants.