A synthetic vaccine is a vaccine

Vaccine

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...

 consisting mainly of synthetic peptides, carbohydrate

Carbohydrate

A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...

s, or antigen

Antigen

An antigen is a foreign molecule that, when introduced into the body, triggers the production of an antibody by the immune system. The immune system will then kill or neutralize the antigen that is recognized as a foreign and potentially harmful invader. These invaders can be molecules such as...

s. They are usually considered to be safer than vaccines from bacterial cultures.

History

The world's first synthetic vaccine was created in 1982 from diphtheria

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...

 toxin by Louis Chedid (scientist) from the Pasteur Institute

Pasteur Institute

The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...

 and Michael Sela

Michael Sela

Michael Sela is an Israeli immunologist of Polish Jewish origin. He is W. Garfield Weston Professor of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.- Birth and academic career :...

 from the Weizmann Institute.
In 1986, Manuel Elkin Patarroyo

Manuel Elkin Patarroyo

Manuel Elkin Patarroyo is a Colombian pathologist who made the world's first attempt of synthetic vaccine for malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes that affects millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa...

 created the SPf66, the first version of a synthetic vaccine for Malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

.