SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerged in late 2019, and was declared a global pandemic on March 11th 2020. With over 50 million cases and 1.2 million deaths around the world, to date, this pandemic represents the gravest global health crisis of our times. Thus, the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine is an urgent global imperative. At the time of writing, there are over 165 vaccine candidates being developed, with 33 in various stages of clinical testing. In this review, we discuss emerging insights about the human immune response to SARS-CoV-2, and their implications for vaccine design. We then review emerging knowledge of the immunogenicity of the numerous vaccine candidates that are currently being tested in the clinic and discuss the range of immune defense mechanisms that can be harnessed to develop novel vaccines that confer durable protection against SARS-CoV-2. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the potential role of a systems vaccinology approach in accelerating the clinical testing of vaccines, to meet the urgent needs posed by the pandemic.

SARS-CoV-2 是导致 COVID-19 的病毒，于 2019 年底出现，并于 2020 年 3 月 11 日被宣布为全球大流行病。迄今为止，全球已有超过 5000 万病例和 120 万人死亡，这场大流行代表了我们这个时代最严重的全球健康危机。因此，开发 COVID-19 疫苗是全球当务之急。截至撰写本文时，已有超过 165 种候选疫苗正在开发中，其中 33 种处于不同临床测试阶段。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了有关人类对 SARS-CoV-2 免疫反应的新见解及其对疫苗设计的影响。然后，我们回顾了目前正在临床测试的众多候选疫苗的免疫原性的新知识，并讨论了可用于开发针对 SARS-CoV-2 提供持久保护的新型疫苗的一系列免疫防御机制。最后，我们最后讨论了系统疫苗学方法在加速疫苗临床测试以满足大流行带来的迫切需求方面的潜在作用。