• capsular polysaccharides
• Steptococcus pneumoniae type 14
• vaccines
• zwitterion oligosaccharide

Vaccines are one of the most powerful means for preventing epidemiological diseases. However, despite the high number of vaccines there are still many diseases that strike indiscriminately old and new generations, often carrying much more serious side effects causing great inconvenience and high costs.
Nowadays Pneumonia infections still represent one of the major causes of worldwide death, and in particular Streptococcus pneumoniae and its capsular polysaccharides are classified as one of the worst enemy, and the development of effective vaccines against these pathogens is one of the first aims of the World Health Organization.
This PhD work is focused on the synthesis of zwitterionic oligosaccharide analogues of the smallest immunogenic structure of the capsular polysaccharide repeating unit of Streptococcus pneumoniae type 14, as hypothetical proposal for the development of new vaccines.