Adjuvantia of de queeste naar het ultieme vaccin

Vaccinations are one of the most important discoveries in medical science. The administration of pathogenic antigens stimulates the immune system to raise antigen-specific responses. Subsequently, a later infection will rapidly be recognized and defeated. Unfortunately, for many infectious diseases nowadays vaccine-induced protection is not strong enough, a problem especially true for the elderly because of their diminished cellular immunity. Because of the ageing of the global population, an important issue arises. In the quest for more effective and safe vaccines, the adjuvants play an increasingly important role. They help setting up an adaptive immune response against the antigen. In this article, the mode of action, the clinical importance of the current adjuvants and the promising group of invariant natural killer T cell activators are reviewed, the authors intending to contribute to a rational use of adjuvants in vaccines.

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