Original: https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens13060441
Vaccines are very important because they protect us from many diseases. Even though vaccine research has improved a lot, it is still very difficult to create safer and more effective vaccines for serious diseases like Ebola, tuberculosis, and AIDS. Some vaccines we currently use can cause bad reactions in certain people, which makes it hard to use them widely.
Because of this, we need to design vaccines that can create the right immune response without causing side effects. Subunit vaccines are safer for humans, but they cannot produce strong protection unless an adjuvant (a substance that boosts the immune response) is added. Although many adjuvants exist, only a few are approved for use in human vaccines because of safety concerns.
Recently, nanoparticles (NPs) have become popular as adjuvants and drug carriers because they can help control and improve the immune response. This review will look at the current situation of vaccine adjuvants, how human-safe adjuvants work, and the future direction of research. We hope this review will help scientists discover new adjuvants and drug delivery systems for better vaccines and treatments.