The winning article:
“Recent Progress on the Versatility of Virus-Like Particles”

by Ciying Qian, Xinlin Liu, Qin Xu, Zhiping Wang, Jie Chen, Tingting Li, Qingbing Zheng, Hai Yu, Ying Gu, Shaowei Li, and Ningshao Xia

Prof. Dr. Li Shaowei is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Life Sciences/School of Public Health, Xiamen University, and head of the vaccine and structural biology group of the National Research Center for Infectious Disease Diagnostic Reagents and Vaccine Engineering Technology. He is mainly engaged in the research and development of genetically engineered vaccines and the application of structural vaccinology. He was selected as one of the “Young and Middle-aged Experts with Outstanding Contributions” in the National Ten Thousand Talents Project, “New Century Excellent Talents Support Program” of the Ministry of Education, and served as a member of the World Health Organization Vaccine Product Development Advisory Committee (WHO-PDVAC). As a core researcher, he has developed the world's only hepatitis E vaccine (launched in 2012), the first domestic HPV vaccine (launched in 2019, certified by WHO PQ in 2021, and licensed in Morocco and Nepal in 2022), a hepatitis E vaccine A series of diagnostic reagents, China's third and fourth generation AIDS diagnostic reagents, etc. He has won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the second prize of the National Technology Invention Award, the China Patent Gold Award, the Qiushi Outstanding Scientific and Technological Achievement Group Award, the China Association for Science and Technology Qiushi Outstanding Youth Achievement Transformation Award, the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association-Sanofi Youth Biological Drug Award, etc. He has published more than 100 SCI papers in journals such as Cell, Host and Microbe, Nature Microbiology, and Nature Communication; obtained 29 invention patents, and was selected as the 2016 annual award winner in Nature Biotechnology. He is the first scholar from mainland China to be in the TOP 20 of Global Translational Research. 

The following is an interview with Prof. Dr. Li Shaowei and his team: 

1. What has been your main research focus in recent years? 

I mainly study the research and development of genetically engineered vaccines. Currently, I pay more attention to structural vaccinology, using structural methods to design new vaccines, as well as research vaccine adjuvants, corresponding preparations, etc. I also regularly go to the clinic. 

We have developed two relatively successful vaccines: one is the world's only hepatitis E vaccine (Yikening), which was launched in China in 2012, and was funded by the Norwegian government to carry out the first overseas vaccination in Bangladesh in 2019. We completed the Phase I clinical trial in the United States in 2021. This is the first Chinese vaccine to conduct clinical trials in the United States. It received marketing authorization from Pakistan in 2021. In 2022, MSF will apply our hepatitis E vaccine to South Sudan for mass vaccination in response to local hepatitis E outbreaks. Another vaccine, the first domestic HPV vaccine (Xinkening), was launched in 2019, certified by WHO PQ in 2021, and licensed in Morocco and Nepal in 2022. 

Our vaccine uses the E. coli prokaryotic expression system. Many vaccines are derived from eukaryotic expression systems. For example, the viral antigens that infect humans are proteins expressed by human cells, which are generally considered difficult to imitate with bacterial expression systems. We have achieved industrial production with bacterial methods, which are more efficient than eukaryotic cells, and have great advantages in terms of production cost, process and yield. Our first hepatitis E vaccine was made using Escherichia coli. Based on such an expression system structure, we further developed an HPV vaccine (bivalent). This HPV vaccine represents my country's scientific research strengths, making my country the third in the world to provide an HPV vaccine after the United States and the United Kingdom. 

2. How was your experience submitting to MDPI? 

Compared to other journals, I think MDPI is very fast in terms of processing and editor responsiveness. Additionally, in terms of our team's submission experience, the review comments received were also of very high quality. There are at least 2–3 reviewers each time, and the reviewers ask many high-level questions. I think the more questions the reviewers ask, the higher the quality of the article will be. It is worth mentioning that after the article is published, the journal will issue an electronic certificate to the author, which will give the author a sense of accomplishment. So the experience of contributing to MDPI is very good. 

Speed ​​is a big advantage because sometimes student submissions place a lot of emphasis on the publication cycle. Additionally, some time-sensitive articles, such as those related to the new crown, will hopefully be published as soon as possible. 

3. What do you think of the influence/reputation of Vaccines in China? 

From the perspective of our vaccinology, we do not actually pay much attention to which journal is good and which journal is bad. Except for CNS journals, which are recognized as good, everyone else chooses journals for submission based on their work content. You publish a lot of articles every year, and the citation rate is very high, so the influence is very large. The advantage of fast publication of OA is that the article can be quickly and easily read by scholars in the same field, which is equivalent to the faster and wider dissemination of the article, which further increases the number of citations of the article. Therefore, the vaccine circle still recognizes Vaccines. 

4. Your team's review won the Vaccines 2022 Best Paper Award. How do you and your team feel about that? 

Qian Ziying: I am very fortunate that the first article I wrote was recognized by the journal. I am also very grateful to Vaccines for the sense of ceremony and achievement from the publication of the paper to the selection of excellent papers. I hope we can create more scientific research stories and allow everyone to share them! 

Liu Xinlin: It is an honor for the article to win the award, and I am very grateful to Vaccines for the recognition and encouragement of our article. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary, I hope Vaccines will continue to develop and become better and better! 

5. On the 10th anniversary of Vaccines, what would you like to say about the journal? 

For researchers, academic journals are an important platform for academic exchanges. Therefore, I hope that Vaccines can serve as a platform for publishing articles in core fields, providing more opportunities for communication. After ten years of sharpening a sword, I also hope that Vaccines will show greater improvement in the next decade, presenting more high-quality articles to everyone, and that it will continue to attract scholars to gather, organize Special Issues or other opportunities, to promote academic or scientific development. I hope the journal will play a bigger and more important role in this field.