Computational pre-screening of antigens is now routinely applied to the discovery of vaccine candidates. Computer-aided vaccine design is a comprehensive introduction to this exciting field of study. The book is intended to be a textbook for researchers and for courses in bioinformatics, as well as a laboratory reference guide. It is written mainly for biologists who want to understand the current methods of computer-aided vaccine design. The contents are designed to help biologists appreciate the underlying concepts and algorithms used, as well as limitations of the methods and strategies for their use. Chapters include: MHC and T cell responses; Immunoglobulins and B cell responses; Scientific publications and databases; Database design; Computational T cell vaccine design; Computational B cell vaccine design; infectious disease informatics; Vaccine safety and quality assessments; and Vaccine adjuvant informatics. Essential reading for any biologist who wants to understand methods of computer-aided vaccine design Description of available data sources and publicly available software, with detailed analysis of strengths and weaknesses Theoretical concepts and practical examples of database design and development for a virtual screening campaign

Autorentext

Dr Tong Joo Chuan is currently a Principal Investigator and Assistant Department Head of the Data Mining Department at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Dr. Tong has won numerous awards, including the MIT TR35 Award in 2008 and Singapore Youth Award (Science and Technology) in 2009, and is the only Asian on the Senior Innovation Advisory Board of Pfizer Inc, the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company, at their world headquarters in New York, USA. Current areas of research in the Tong group include: computational immunology, computational epigenetics, combinatorial library design and computational modeling of biological systems. Professor Shoba Ranganathan is currently Chair Professor of Bioinformatics at Macquarie University, Australia. She is also Adjunct Professor at the National University of Singapore. Her research is focused on bioinformatics analysis at the genome, transcriptome and proteome levels. She holds a doctorate degree in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, followed by post-doctoral training in biocomputing with Bernard Pullman and Alberte Pullman at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, Paris, France and at the University of New Orleans, USA. Her professional experience includes academic positions at the University of Delhi, India; University of Sydney, Australia; Australian National University and the National University of Singapore as well as Consultant to the first Australian bioinformatics company, eBioinformatics. She was the first Australian Director elected to the Board of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and is currently the President, Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBionet) and Steering Committee member of the International Immunomics Society. Professor Ranganathan has authored more than 100 publications. She is an editorial board member and reviewer for several bioinformatics journals and has served on the organizing/program committees of several international conferences.

Klappentext

Computer-aided vaccine design is intended to be a textbook for researchers and for courses in bioinformatics, as well as a laboratory reference guide. It is written mainly for biologists who want to understand the current methods of computer-aided vaccine design.

Inhalt

Computer-aided vaccine design: its nature and scope; Immunological databases; Infectious disease informatics; T cell vaccine design; B cell vaccine design; Vaccine safety and quality assessments; Adjuvant informatics.