A new approach to vaccination: polymorphic vaccines for RNA viruses

Conventional vaccines consist of a very large number of virtually identical molecules. While these have been extremely effective for prevention agains t viral diseases, development of vaccines against rapidly changing pathogen s such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus has prov ed to be more difficult. We propose a new approach to vaccination against t hese rapidly mutating pathogens by the use of vaccines consisting of a set of highly polymorphic recombinant molecules. (C) 2000 Harcourt Publishers L td.