Prophylactic vaccination has made an essential contribution to the improvem
ent of human health over the 20th century. However, we still lack efficient
vaccines against major human diseases such as malaria or tuberculosis. Tod
ay, the design of therapeutic vaccines referred to as 'pharmaccines' is act
ively investigated in order to treat diseases such as cancer. In that conte
xt, novel ways to rationalize and accelerate vaccine discovery are needed.
A series of advances in the fields of molecular biology and computer scienc
e, have greatly accelerated the rate at which candidate vaccine antigens ca
n be discovered. In this review, we will present and discuss how applied ge
nome research may facilitate antigen discovery and the design of new prophy
lactic and therapeutic vaccines. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights
reserved.