The three conditions mentioned in the title, malaria, HIV and tuberculosis, are responsible for about 5 million deaths per year and thus constitute some of the most compelling challenges in biomedical research. Slowly but surely, new knowledge is being gathered about these conditions, improving the odds of developing a functional vaccine.

The recent rise of systems biology might also provide an important tool, according to Rappuoli and Aderem (2011). Through using systems biology to analyze data sets obtained during proof-of-concept trials, correlates of protection or signatures of immunogenicity could be identified, thereby aiding the acceleration of large scale clinical trials.

By using the power of systems biology, the ability to predict and investigate the behavior of a complete biological system, vaccine candidates can be evaluated and their functionality can be assessed before expensive, long-term and large scale trials are put into motion. In doing so, the duration of the entire clinical trial process can be shortened. It is estimated that, in the past three decades, only one hypothesis has been tested every eight years in the battle against the three previously mentioned diseases.

Systems biology could allow a new, innovative design of clinical trials, such as testing several hypotheses or vaccine candidates in parallel, and getting earlier results that could be used to evaluate the effectiveness. This, in turn, could significantly shorten the time required to develop vaccines for any of these three diseases, as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: How systems biology might shorten the clinical trial process through innovative trial desing. (Source: Rappuoli and Aderem, 2011)

So far the theory. Now, it's up to system biologists to show the feasibility of these proposed innovations. Let's hope the expectations can be met.

References

Rappuoli, R. and Aderem, A. (2011). A 2020 vision for vaccines against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Nature. 473, pp. 463 – 469.

SeattleBioMed, Press Releases. (http://www.seattlebiomed.org/press-release/nature-perspective-offers-2020-vision-vaccines-malaria-tb-hivaids)