Courses / Module

The course will examine adjuvants, building on concepts delivered in modules covering innate immunology. One lecture will survey the use of vaccines in a historical context (Jenner and prior to 1890) and in traditional folk medicines from around the world. The bulk of the course will survey the rational design of vaccines. This will begin with the history of polio vaccines comparing the Salk v Sabin vaccines, the lesser known failed vaccines of the 1930s and the Cutter incident. The course will then survey all vaccines in common use and examine the particular challenges of protecting the neonate in the developing world. Finally the course will examine the prospect for novel vaccines against the three major infectious diseases of poverty (TB, HIV, malaria). Students will be expected to perform considerable reading of current literature in vaccinology and participate in a group project assignment planning an emergency immunization response for a scenario based on a hypothetical natural or man-made disaster. Students will also be expected to prepare 2 reports on prospects and priorities for vaccination in under-developed and their native country respectively.