The 5th International Precision Vaccines Conference will be co-hosted by the Precision Vaccines Program of Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH; Boston, MA), Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù (OPBG; Rome, Italy), The University of Vermont (UVM; Burlington, Vermont), and Dartmouth University (Hanover, New Hampshire). Our conference theme will be precision vaccinology as a new paradigm in an era when vaccines are at a crossroads. This in-person conference will gather experts in vaccinology and immunology from academia, government, and industry to present, discuss, interact, and forge new collaborations to advance precision vaccinology. With infection outbreaks on the rise, vaccine successes and challenges will be discussed, and innovative solutions to address these challenges will be presented in an ongoing race against infectious and non-infectious diseases including opioid overdose. 

Vaccines prevent ~3 million deaths every year and are crucial in combating antimicrobial resistance. Optimizing the implementation of existing vaccines could help avert up to 1.5 million additional deaths, as well as disabilities resulting from vaccine-preventable diseases. Immunologically vulnerable populations (VPs), including pregnant women, term and preterm newborns and young infants, older adults, and patients affected by chronic or immunocompromising conditions are frequently under-vaccinated and/or at risk of reduced vaccine efficacy, presenting a major health and economic burden to society. Vaccine development programs largely focus on healthy populations providing insufficient insight into how to best discover, develop, and deploy a given vaccine for a distinct vulnerable population. 

The goal of the 5th International Precision Vaccines Conference is to discuss and reflect on recent progress in precision vaccinology to address pathogens for which current vaccines are not yet available or are currently suboptimal as well as for non-infectious indications, such as prevention of opioid overdose. 

We welcome abstracts from different disciplines, spanning epidemiology, basic immunology, systems vaccinology, human in vitro modeling, novel adjuvant science, and qualitative research regarding vaccine attitudes. Conference topics will include:

•  Novel vaccines against emerging pathogens such as Clostridium difficile, H5N1 “bird” influenza, and mpox virus.

• Host-, pathogen- or drug-related mechanisms that affect vaccine immunogenicity in vulnerable populations.

• Safety and immunogenicity of existing and novel vaccines in distinct vulnerable populations that differ by age and chronic disease.

• Defining biomarkers of vaccine safety and efficacy to guide effective optimal vaccination of vulnerable populations against emerging or re-emerging pathogens, as well as non-infectious diseases.