Systems vaccinology and big data in the vaccine development chain

Raeven, René H. M.; van Riet, Elly; Meiring, Hugo D.; Metz, Bernard; Kersten, Gideon F. A.

In each phase of vaccine development (Fig. 2) , systems vaccinology techniques can be applied to improve the quality of the vaccine development process as well as decreasing the risk of late-stage failure as a result of increased knowledge (Table 2) . Apart from host-vaccine responses, a systems approach can also provide essential information on the vaccine itself, more specifically the antigen composition. Most vaccines belong to one of four groups: (i) live-attenuated, (ii) whole inactivated, (iii) subunit and (iv) conjugate vaccines. Detailed vaccine characterization is mainly of interest for complex multi-protein vaccines such as live-attenuated and inactivated (bacterial) vaccines if for instance batch consistency must be proven.