“... this book was written from start to finish by one extremely dedicated and erudite individual. The author has done an excellent job of covering the many topics that fall under the umbrella of computational biology for vaccine design, demonstrating an admirable command of subject matter in fields as disparate as object-oriented databases and regulation of T cell response. Simply put, it has just the right breadth and depth, and it reads well. In fact, readability is one of its virtues—making the book enticing and useful, all at once...” Human Vaccines, 2010 "... This book has several strong points. Although there are many textbooks that deal with vaccinology, few attempts have been made to bring together descriptions of vaccines in history, basic bioinformatics, various computational solutions and challenges in vaccinology, detailed experimental methodologies, and cutting-edge technologies... This book may well serve as a first line of reference for all biologists and computer scientists..." –Virology Journal, 2009 Vaccines have probably saved more lives and reduced suffering in a greater number of people than any other medical intervention in human history, succeeding in eradicating smallpox and significantly reducing the mortality and incidence of other diseases. However, with the emergence of diseases such as SARS and the threat of biological warfare, vaccination has once again become a topic of major interest in public health. Vaccinology now has at its disposal an array of post-genomic approaches of great power. None has a more persuasive potential impact than the application of computational informatics to vaccine discovery; the recent expansion in genome data and the parallel increase in cheap computing power have placed the bioinformatics exploration of pathogen genomes centre stage for vaccine researchers. This is the first book to address the area of bioinformatics as applied to rational vaccine design, discussing the ways in which bioinformatics can contribute to improved vaccine development by introducing the subject of harnessing the mathematical and computing power inherent in bioinformatics to the study of vaccinology putting it into a historical and societal context, and exploring the scope of its methods and applications. Bioinformatics for Vaccinology is a one-stop introduction to computational vaccinology. It will be of particular interest to bioinformaticians with an interest in immunology, as well as to immunologists, and other biologists who need to understand how advances in theoretical and computational immunobiology can transform their working practices.

This volume explores computational vaccine design and the technologies that support it. Chapters have been divided into four parts detailing immunonics and system immunology, databases, prediction of antigenicity and immunogenicity, and computational vaccinology. Written in the format of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, each chapter includes an introduction to the topic, lists necessary materials and reagents, includes tips on troubleshooting and known pitfalls, and step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Computational Vaccine Design: Methods and Protocols aims to reflect on the rigorous and imaginative use of computational technologies to help catalyze future efforts and to improve global public health through the development of a broad range of novel vaccines.

In contrast to existing books on immunoinformatics, this volume presents a cross-section of immunoinformatics research. The contributions highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the field and how collaborative efforts among bioinformaticians and bench scientists result in innovative strategies for understanding the immune system. Immunoinformatics is ideal for scientists and students in immunology, bioinformatics, microbiology, and many other disciplines.

Many potential applications of synthetic and systems biology are relevant to the challenges associated with the detection, surveillance, and responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. On March 14 and 15, 2011, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop in Washington, DC, to explore the current state of the science of synthetic biology, including its dependency on systems biology; discussed the different approaches that scientists are taking to engineer, or reengineer, biological systems; and discussed how the tools and approaches of synthetic and systems biology were being applied to mitigate the risks associated with emerging infectious diseases. The Science and Applications of Synthetic and Systems Biology is organized into sections as a topic-by-topic distillation of the presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop. Its purpose is to present information from relevant experience, to delineate a range of pivotal issues and their respective challenges, and to offer differing perspectives on the topic as discussed and described by the workshop participants. This report also includes a collection of individually authored papers and commentary.

Reverse Vaccinology: Concept, Methods and Advancement presents the development strategy of new vaccines through genome sequencing bioinformatics analysis. Reverse vaccinology promises to revolutionize vaccine development, especially for pathogens to which the classical applications of Pasteur’s principles have failed, and it is explained in detail in this book.The book is split into three sections: the first, Concept, brings the basis of reverse vaccinology, vaccine antigen discovery, and subunit vaccine; the second, Tools and Methods, describes immunoinformatic, proteomics for epitope-vaccine design, data bases, network analysis, machine learning, and NGS driven antigen screening technology; and the last one, Disease Case Study, discusses real-world examples in the development of new vaccines for diverse diseases.It is a valuable resource for bioinformaticians, researchers, students, and member of the biomedical and medical fields who want to learn more about a new and agile process for the development of new vaccines. ? Explains the fundamentals of reverse vaccinology and how it can save time in the development of new vaccines ? Focuses on the efforts to develop a vaccine candidate against various pathogens using computational approaches ? Presents databases and web servers for conducting reverse vaccinology ? Describes the screening process of potential vaccine candidate through machine learning

While the sequence of the human genome sequence has hit the headlines, extensive exploitation of this for practical applications is still to come. Genomic and post-genomic technologies applied to viral and bacterial pathogens, which are almost equally important from a scientific perspective, have the potential to be translated into useful products and processes much more rapidly. Genomics, Proteomics and Vaccines introduces the history of vaccinology and discusses how vaccines are expected to evolve in the future. It describes the relevant technologies, including genome sequencing and analysis, DNA microarrays, 2D electrophoresis and 2D chromatography, mass spectrometry and high-throughput protein expression and purification. The book also features examples of the exploitation of genomics and post-genomics in vaccine discovery, and contains useful descriptions of the biology and pathogenesis of clinically important bacterial pathogens. This book should be of interest to all those working in vaccine discovery and development in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as in academic institutions