Carbohydrate moieties as vaccine candidates: Meeting summary

In September 2007, a meeting entitled 'Carbohydrate Moieties as Vaccine Candidates' was held at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). This meeting brought together scientists from a number of disciplines to address issues concerning carbohydrate moieties as targets for vaccines for a variety of pathogens and tumors. In addition, the meeting participants addressed fundamental topics of glycoimmunology including the recognition of glycotopes by B and T lymphocytes, the ontogeny of anti-carbohydrate immune responses, peptide mimicry, carbohydrate antigen processing pathways and adjuvants. One session reported progress in the development of new tools such as computational algorithms, glycan arrays and oligosaccharide synthesis and their application to carbohydrate vaccine research. The session titles were: (1) immune response to bacterial carbohydrate antigens; (2) immune response to glycolipids; (3) immune response to carbohydrate antigens on other microbes and on tumors; (4) novel vaccine approaches; (5) novel tools in carbohydrate vaccine research; (6) bench to bedside: carbohydrate moieties as vaccine immunopotentiators.