ReviewProceedings. Biological sciences2017
Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine resistance does not?
Review in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 83 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
83 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 196 citations in OpenAlex.
- Models to predict the public health impact of vaccine resistance: A systematic review.Vaccine · 2019Pooled it
- Genomic analysis ofMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Developing monoclonal antibody therapies for measles could lead to adverse pathogen evolution.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Taxonomy of the Full Health and Societal Value of Maternal Vaccination to Prevent Infant Respiratory Syncytial Virus Disease.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2026Review
- Viral infections in solid organ transplant recipients: immunological principles and intervention strategies.American journal of translational research · 2026Review
- The Central Importance of Vaccines to Mitigate the Threat of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Pathogens.Vaccines · 2025Review
- Efficacy of Three Vaccine Regimens Against Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis Virus Transmission Potential in Rainbow Trout.Vaccines · 2025Article
- The speed of vaccination rollout and the risk of pathogen adaptation.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Article
- Exceptions to the rule: When does resistance evolution not undermine antibiotic therapy in human bacterial infections?Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Current treatment strategies for targeting virulence factors and biofilm formation inFuture microbiology · 2024Review
- Facilitating the development of urgently required combination vaccines.The Lancet. Global health · 2024Review
- Building pyramids against the evolutionary emergence of pathogens.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Monoclonal Antibodies as a Therapeutic Strategy against Multidrug-Resistant Bacterial Infections in a Post-COVID-19 Era.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genome evolutionary patterns.Microbiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Therapeutic and vaccinomic potential of moonlighting proteins for the discovery and design of drugs and vaccines against schistosomiasis.American journal of translational research · 2024Review
- Microevolution and Its Impact on Hypervirulence, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Vaccine Escape inMicroorganisms · 2023Review
- Antibiotic resistance in patients with liver cirrhosis: Prevalence and current approach to tackle.World journal of clinical cases · 2023Review
- Article
- The need for Africa to develop capacity for vaccinology as a means of curbing antimicrobial resistance.Vaccine: X · 2023Review
23 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Why is drug resistance common and vaccine resistance rare? Drugs and vaccines both impose substantial pressure on pathogen populations to evolve resistance and indeed, drug resistance typically emerges soon after the introduction of a drug. But vaccine resistance has only rarely emerged. Using well-established principles of population genetics and evolutionary ecology, we argue that two key differences between vaccines and drugs explain why vaccines have so far proved more robust against evolution than drugs. First, vaccines tend to work prophylactically while drugs tend to work therapeutically. Second, vaccines tend to induce immune responses against multiple targets on a pathogen while drugs tend to target very few. Consequently, pathogen populations generate less variation for vaccine resistance than they do for drug resistance, and selection has fewer opportunities to act on that variation. When vaccine resistance has evolved, these generalities have been violated. With careful forethought, it may be possible to identify vaccines at risk of failure even before they are introduced.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.