Prospects for and barriers to a fungal vaccine

Vaccination is a desirable strategy to prevent life-threatening fungal infections. Candidiasis is the most common invasive fungal infection, and promising vaccine targets are nearing clinical testing to prevent such infections. One barrier to developing antifungal vaccines is the perceived risk of blunted immune responses in at-risk patients. However, vaccines stimulate effective immune responses even in highly immunocompromised patients. The biggest barrier to development of fungal vaccines is the lack of available capital to translate discoveries made at the bench into biologics used at the bedside. Nevertheless, vaccines targeting invasive fungal infections are an extremely promising avenue of research and development. It is desirable that additional sources of capital be made available to academic scientists to facilitate development of such vaccines.