New Approaches to in silico Design of Epitope-Based Vaccines

96 CHAPTER 8. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
of the score is controversial. For in silico EV design it would be desirable to have a widely
accepted score. The constantly increasing number of sequenced viruses provides a sound
basis for further statistical analyses in this regard. While based on real data, the results
of the vaccine design studies are theoretical in nature. To complement them, it would
be interesting to experimentally evaluate the vaccines and thus the performance of the
proposed algorithms. Here, the development of a mouse model to efficiently test vaccine
constructs and delivery strategies in a high-throughput manner would be of great help.
Ever decreasing sequencing costs and improving analysis methods will contribute greatly
to advances in vaccine design. HLA typing will become considerably cheaper allowing
for high-resolution clinical data. Furthermore, inexpensive and rapid sequencing of, e.g.,
cancer genomes is an important step towards an era of personalized medicine.
In the long term the use of in silico epitope discovery, selection and assembly, e.g.,
as part of a vaccine design pipeline from sequencing data to the EV components, will
significantly change the way vaccines are developed. The use of standardized approaches
for EVs will solve some of the issues of classical vaccines based on attenuated pathogens.
In particular, it promises shorter development times, which can be essential for emerging
infectious diseases. At the same time, it is indispensable for fully personalized vaccines,
particularly for cancer immunotherapy.