Despite decades of effort, there is neither an AIDS vaccine nor a universal flu vaccine — and two obstacles stand in the way to faster vaccine progress, Gregory Poland, MD, director of the vaccine research group at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, told The New York Times.
"One is scientific, and one is embarrassing," Dr. Poland said.
The embarrassing reason is a lack of investment in flu vaccines. It takes 10 years and more than $1 billion to develop a vaccine, and vaccine researchers face a confusing mix of potential backers.
Vaccines meant to protect only poor people in distant countries typically must wait for donations from donor governments and philanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust even though these plagues spread across borders.
The scientific obstacles to vaccine progress, though more intractable, are rare, researchers say.
Most vaccines work by creating antibodies that block the disease agent's own proteins. While viruses have only a few target proteins, bacteria have up to 6,000, and parasites even more, said Paul Offit, MD, director of vaccine education at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
And some relatively small viruses, such as HIV, flu and hepatitis C, mutate so rapidly that their surfaces change shape before antibodies have a chance to lock onto them.
Despite these challenges, vaccine projects are in the works — but need more money beyond the U.S., Britain and the Gates Foundation.
"In this multitrillion dollar economy, it's a little discouraging that we can't raise the funding," said Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development in Houston.