Since its breakout in December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has accounted for nearly half a million deaths with over 7 million confirmed cases globally—as of June 23rd, 2020. To prevent further mortalities and halt the spread of this disease, an effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is urgently required. While traditional vaccines, such as whole-killed or live-attenuated vaccines, have demonstrated great success in limiting life-threatening diseases, including smallpox and polio, their development processes can take years or decades, making these platforms less appealing for this ongoing pandemic.

  Thus, due to this need for rapid development, extraordinary efforts are focusing on the development of next-generation vaccine platforms—which utilize less time-intensive discovery and manufacturing processes—for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine applications. As a prime example, Moderna developed and released its first clinical batch of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in a record 42 days, and the phase 3 clinical trial is set to start in July 2020. In addition to this mRNA vaccine, many other next-generation vaccine platforms, including DNA, adenovirus, and recombinant protein vaccines, are currently being investigated in clinical trials for SARS-CoV-2.

  The goal of this collection is to highlight important advancements in the rapid development of next-generation vaccines by (i) providing several examples of novel, next-generation vaccine platforms, (ii) demonstrating methodologies for their design, formulation, and characterization, and (iii) introducing large-scale manufacturing processes related to next-generation vaccines.