Vaccination is considered as one of the most cost-effective and preventive strategies against bacterial infections. The current, global crisis of antibiotic resistance has further increased the demand for more efficient vaccines. Traditional vaccines such as attenuated or heat-killed vaccines have several limitations such as safety, heterogeneous nature. Hence, nowadays research efforts have been directed towards the development of subunit vaccines wherein only purified microbial component is used.

A few chemists from Italy and the Netherlands have developed a synthetic vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis infection. They have used bacterial capsules as a microbial component for the development of the subunit vaccine. Capsule induced immune response does not have memory. Hence, they have conjugated bacterial capsules to the additional transport protein to activate the immune system and to maintain a memory of immune response.

Synthetic subunit vaccines offer myriad advantages such as safety, efficacy, homogeneity, and consistent response. Hence, this discovery will certainly help to regulate the incidences of antibiotic resistance.

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