Dear reader,
This issue of Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics begins with a Profile of the HealVax company (Foerster, p).
We are delighted to present a Special Focus on Key Issues in Contemporary Vaccinology, which gives an update on some of the most pressing issues in the field as well as new developments in cutting-edge research. This Special Focus is divided into two subsections:
Acceptance
Seven articles examine vaccine knowledge, attitudes, hesitancy and acceptability, including a survey among clinicians on the increase of maternal vaccination uptake (Frew, p), a trio of studies from Italy investigating vaccine acceptability and hesitancy of parents (Napolitano, p), adolescents (Pelullo, p) and pregnant women (D'Alessandro, p), a review of strategies addressing hesitancy in France (Fokoun, p), an appraisal of attitudes to maternal vaccines among ethnically diverse immigrants to Australia (Krishnaswamy, p), and a systematic review of reporting on trust in vaccination (Larson, p). Three articles on compliance comprise a review of legal approaches to ensure that parents have their children vaccinated (Weithorn, p), a study of the link between individual feelings of control over health issues with compliance to childhood immunization (Amit Aharon, p), and a review of strategies to increase HPV vaccine uptake in the US (Head, p). Four articles on the role of modern technologies in acceptance propose a social ecological model to promote vaccination (Kolff, p), test a text-messaging system of reminders for use in an influenza pandemic (Lehnert, p), analyze YouTube videos for misinformation on vaccination (Donzelli, p), and report on a needs-assessment survey for a vaccine-tracking app among newcomers to Canada (Paradis, p). Finally, two research articles investigate the willingness to pay for an Ebola vaccine during an outbreak in West Africa (Painter, p) and the impact of the Shandong illegal vaccine sales incident on immunizations in China (Cao, p).
New Research Horizons
Seven articles in this subsection include a review on the development of chimpanzee adenoviral vaccine vectors (Zhou, p), characterization of transcriptional signatures induced by adjuvants (Salyer, p), more reviews on new tuberculosis vaccines (Gong, p), non-invasive administration routes (Zheng, p) and RSV vaccines in development (Blanco, p), a report on novel sulfated archaeal glycolipid-based adjuvant (Akache, p), and a commentary on a global fund for the development of vaccines against emerging infections (Wong, p).
Regular articles in this issue feature the Hepatitis B section with a transcriptome analysis of vaccine non-responders (Qiu, p), immunogenicity and safety trial of a recombinant vaccine in healthy adults (Kishino, p), and a commentary on the E6F6 antibody, which suppresses viremia and reduces hepatocarcinogenesis in a transgenic animal model (Kang, p).
Two Rotavirus-related articles report on the safety of a live oral vaccine (Hoffman, p) and post-marketing immunogenicity of the Rotavac vaccine (Ella, p).
Finally, we present an estimation of the residual risk of cervical cancer after vaccination with HPV-9 (Petry, p), characterization of herpes zoster epidemiology in Germany in connection with the Licensed varicella vaccine (Zoch-Lesniak, p), a mini-review of genital warts Immunotherapy (Yuan, p), and an experimental immunogenicity study of a candidate DNA vaccine against HIV (Munson, p).
Our monthly News, Policy and Profiles (NP&P) track offers a selection of the latest news in the field of vaccines and immunotherapeutics. In this section we also regularly publish opinion pieces on timely, interesting and controversial topics related to vaccines and immunotherapeutics, profiles of companies and organizations, as well as portraits of distinguished scientists in our field. Please contact Acquisitions Editor Adam Weiss ( [email protected]) with your ideas for commentaries, opinion pieces, profiles and portraits. Your suggestions for and contributions to our N&P&P track are always welcome!
Sincerely,
Ronald Ellis, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
Adam Weiss, PhD
Acquisitions Editor