Molecular Immunology in Bacterial Vaccine Discovery.

The global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a difficult challenge, as underscored by the World Health Organization (WHO), which identifies AMR as one of the three greatest threats to human health. Annual deaths due to AMR-related infections are ~700,000 and are projected to rise up to 10 million by 2050. New antibiotics are not a solution since bacteria promptly adapt and develop new resistance mechanisms. Therefore, there is a strong need to invest in vaccines against AMR infections. This Special Issue offers an open access forum that aims to bring together a collection of nine review articles addressing multi-disciplinary approaches to unveil various aspects of vaccine development against human bacterial pathogens. Specifically, it focuses on a panel of harmful pathogens, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), AMR Burkholderia species, and selected ESKAPE pathogens. Among ESKAPE pathogens, a group of multidrug-resistant bacteria that are the leading cause of hospital infections globally and “escape” the biocidal action of antibiotics, we focus on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococci, both leading causes of death worldwide.