Vaccine development: A historical perspective.

Prevention from disease is always better than cure. The concept of preventing disease originated during the 17th century when Edward Jenner an English physician contributed to eradicating smallpox. Jenneru0027s work is widely regarded as the foundation of prophylactic measure of disease by the vaccine, the term derived from Vacca” means cow. The concept of the vaccine is slowly traveling from prophylaxis to therapeutic. However, therapeutic vaccines are under research and development. The first vaccine was developed using virus-infected lesions and in later stages many different types of vaccines such as toxoid vaccines, live attenuated vaccines, inactivated or killed vaccines and subunit vaccines have been formed. Modern advancement in biotechnology research had laid down for the development of the recombinant vaccine. However, the future trend of vaccine development is towards recombinant DNA technology and therapeutic vaccine for targeted diseases. This review article focuses on the historical perspectives of vaccine and the development of the vaccine as it is a core area of research where the life of the human is saved from various possible diseases.