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Integrated organ immunity: a path to a universal vaccine

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Here, I introduce the concept of ‘integrated organ immunity’ to explain how the innate and adaptive immune systems and non-haematopoietic cells can interact in tissues to generate enduring protective immunity against diverse pathogens in an antigen-agnostic manner. Considering immune responses through this framework could enable the design of a new class of vaccines termed ‘universal vaccines’ that are not pathogen specific.

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Fig. 1: Harnessing integrated organ immunity for universal vaccines.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Philanthropy, and other anonymous donors for their generous support of the work in my laboratory at Stanford.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Bali Pulendran

  2. Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Bali Pulendran

  3. Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Bali Pulendran

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  1. Bali Pulendran
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Correspondence to Bali Pulendran.

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Pulendran, B. Integrated organ immunity: a path to a universal vaccine. Nat Rev Immunol 24, 81–82 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-024-00990-1

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