Nanomedicines for immunization and vaccines

Immunization and treatment of infectious diseases is been extensively exploited to develop better and safe vaccines. The efforts have been made to improve the effectiveness of vaccines and for this reason nanomedicine emerges as the ultimate alternative. Most common infectious diseases, such as hepatite B virus (HBV), human immunodeficiency virus/ acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) malaria, human papillomavirus (HPV) and tuberculosis (TB), have aggressive and prolonged treatments, and for this purpose the development of novel therapeutic systems is a priority aiming at reducing cytotoxicity and drug resistance. Examples of these novel systems are solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), polymeric, inorganic, metallic, magnetic, viral-based nanoparticles and dendrimers that have been received more attention for their proven efficiency in providing immunization, targeting and triggering antibody response at the cellular level. This review focuses on the efforts that have been made towards the development of novel approaches and also patented and marketed formulations of nanocarrier-based vaccine formulations.