Rational design of novel antibacterial vaccines with an emphasis on tuberculosis.

Vaccines are available for some, but not all, bacterial pathogens. Accordingly, bacterial pathogens still cause major health problems. Novel insights into the basic immunological mechanisms involved in protection against bacteria will provide guidelines for the design of novel vaccines. In particular, these include broad-acting vaccines composed of protein antigens shared by all members of a given pathogen group but absent in the human host and vaccines which operate via T-cells.