Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
Name : The 51st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Toxicology
Date : July 03, 2024 - July 05, 2024
The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus triggered a medical revolution in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of emerging infectious diseases. In vaccine science and design, mRNA vaccines were commercialized within a year, and there is a tectonic shift in innovation towards new ways of thinking and countermeasures for vaccine therapy and immune control methods for the treatment and prevention of diseases other than infectious diseases. In vaccine science, three essential elements - antigens, delivery systems and adjuvants - are evolving, involving researchers and technologies from other disciplines, and having a major impact on design. Of particular note are new immunological concepts such as trained immunity and innate immune memory, in addition to so-called antigen-specific immune responses, and the importance of adjuvants.
The word adjuvant is derived from the Latin word "adjuvare" meaning "to help". It is a generic term for substances (factors) that are administered with a vaccine for the purpose of enhancing its efficacy (immunogenicity). The research and development of adjuvants has a history of more than 90 years, and their actual mechanisms have long remained immunologically unexplained, with the famous irony that they are the 'immunologists' dirty little secret'. However, recent advances in immunology have made it possible to develop adjuvants using innovative scientific approaches, and there is a worldwide race to develop the next generation of adjuvants.
In particular, in recent years, adjuvants alone have been actively developed as single-agent prophylactic and therapeutic agents: prophylactic administration (prophylaxis) of TLR ligands and other innate immune activators (such as STING ligands) has been shown to induce strong protective immunity against viruses and cancer, and It is becoming clear that Trained Immunity and other immune responses play an important role as mechanisms. If time permits, I would like to discuss the clinical development of vaccines and adjuvants for immunotherap, and adjuvant database developed in Japan as well as vaccine science outreach activities being conducted globally.
