Rational design of vaccines against enveloped RNA viruses

The enveloped RNA viruses are responsible for many important infectious diseases both in the UK and worldwide. The most familiar of these would probably be influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, rabies, dengue and yellow fever. Conventional vaccines against all of the most widespread diseases have been available for several years, although with widely varying degrees of safety and efficacy. Although vaccines against diseases such as measles, rubella, and yellow fever have been fairly successful, all vaccines against diseases caused by this group of viruses still have several drawbacks and are in need of improvement for a variety of reasons. During the past decade our knowledge in several diverse areas of the biological sciences has expanded to the extent that it can now be combined and serious attempts made to design and engineer biological molecules with immunogenic potential. First, significant advances have been made in elucidating the mechanisms operating in the immune defence network and in determining the structure of both immunogenic molecules and the components of the immune system with which they interact. Second, the development of recombinant DNA technology has enabled biological molecules to be synthesized under conditions not restricted by the characteristics of their parent organism. Such molecules can then be altered in such a way as to improve their efficiency and their level of production. It is the purpose of this paper to outline the problems associated with the production of vaccines against enveloped RNA viruses and to discuss how recent advances in knowledge and techniques can help to overcome these problems.