Progress Toward the Elusive Vaccine.

The gram-negative bacterial pathogen causes a wide range of infections, mostly in hospitalized and immunocompromised patients, those with burns, surgical wounds, or combat-related wounds, and in people with cystic fibrosis. The increasing antibiotic resistance of confers a pressing need for vaccines, yet there are no vaccines approved for human use, and recent promising candidates have failed in large clinical trials. In this review, we summarize recent clinical trials and pre-clinical studies of vaccines and provide a suggested framework for the makeup of a future successful vaccine. Murine models of infection suggest that antibodies, specifically opsonophagocytic killing antibodies (OPK), antitoxin antibodies, and anti-attachment antibodies, combined with T cell immunity, specifically T17 responses, are needed for broad and potent protection against infection. A better understanding of the human immune response to infections, and to vaccine candidates, will eventually pave the way to a successful vaccine for this wily pathogen.