Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Qian Xie
School of Public Health (Shenzhen), Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, China
Pengju Yu
Division of HIV/AIDS and Sex-transmitted Virus Vaccines, Institute for Biological Product Control, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), Beijing 102629, China
Jie Zhang
Division of HIV/AIDS and Sex-transmitted Virus Vaccines, Institute for Biological Product Control, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), Beijing 102629, China
Chenchen He
Division of HIV/AIDS and Sex-transmitted Virus Vaccines, Institute for Biological Product Control, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), Beijing 102629, China
Weijin Huang
Division of HIV/AIDS and Sex-transmitted Virus Vaccines, Institute for Biological Product Control, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), Beijing 102629, China
Youchun Wang
Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Chenyan Zhao
Division of HIV/AIDS and Sex-transmitted Virus Vaccines, Institute for Biological Product Control, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), Beijing 102629, China
Influenza viruses continue to undergo antigenic drift and shift, resulting in the need to update existing vaccines annually. Therefore, the development of a universal influenza vaccine has become an urgent global need. This paper reviews the functions of common antigenic targets of influenza vaccines and their advantages and disadvantages in universal vaccine design. We also summarize the common design strategies for universal influenza vaccines, which mainly include the immunofocusing strategy, multi-target combination strategy, T-cell strategy, computationally optimized broadly cross-reactive antigenic strategy (COBRA), and artificial intelligence strategy. In addition, we also sort out the latest research progress of universal influenza vaccines under different technological routes. This will help researchers better grasp the latest developments of universal influenza vaccines.