Nanovacinas : a nova era da imunização

Abstract

Vaccines are immunizing agents produced with pathogens or fragments that lose their ability to generate disease. When a person is vaccinated, they are protected from potentially serious illness. However, developing vaccines is not a simple task and several studies are needed to obtain detailed knowledge about the immune system's response to antigens. Despite the great advances since the first vaccines, there are still gaps to be filled. Conventional immunizers offer some disadvantages mainly related to immunogenicity, stability, and storage of the final product. Nanotechnology appears as a powerful tool to try to solve the problems of traditional vaccines, and that is why nanovaccine is a new generation of immunizers using nanoparticles as carriers or adjuvants, and that has generated promising prospects for the treatment of diseases that even then they had not had good results with traditional vaccines. In this context, the objective of this work was to review aspects related to the production of nanovaccines. Therefore, some relevant points on this field, such as: The history of vaccines and their importance; types of vaccines; existing platforms; advantages and disadvantages of this technology, among others are presented. In addition, a brief presentation about nanotechnology and its infinite possibilities in the manufacture of nanovaccines is also addressed considering their respective stages in clinical studies. While currently, existing vaccines are very important in the context of immunization, efforts to develop better quality, safer, and more efficient vaccines are very worthwhile. It is expected that an increasing number of nanovaccines will be approved and reach the market. However, studies related to biosafety, toxicity, bioavailability, must still be optimized to obtain immune responses to vaccines based on nanoparticles.