Adaptive immune response is the specific response that the immune system exerts against pathogens. This mechanism is particularly active toward viral infections where the immune system produces specialized lymphocytes (to fight the virus), called memory B cells (to be effective in case of new infections) and antibodies (corresponding to the humoral response).135 The stimulation of adaptive responses in case of specific infections can be induced artificially through the introduction of attenuated pathogens, stimulating the production of specific antibodies. This is the principle of vaccination, which is the most common procedure for immunization of large areas of population against many kinds of lethal viruses.135 Besides, the use of viral proteins as antigens in the vaccine formulation leads to neutralizing antibodies, but, due to the low immunogenicity of isolated proteins, does not always stimulate sufficiently the immune system to reach total protection. More recently, nanotechnology has been applied to develop more efficient vaccines (e.g., nanovaccines). The use of nanostructures with a size similar to virus (virus-like nanoparticles) sensibly enhances the response helping to reach immunity.135 HNMs can adsorb viral particles and present them to the immune system.136,137 This method of vaccination has been successfully applied in vivo for the challenge of herpes simplex 2 virus. HSV-2 starts its spreading in vaginal tissues and then diffuses to the neurons causing death in mice. ZnO NPs (teardrop morphology), after vaginal inoculation with HSV-2, are able not only to prevent viral cell adhesion but also to expose viral antigens to T cells and DCs, leading to immunization. The preclinical trials against HSV-2 showed a survival to infection higher than 90%. This approach highlights the possibility to couple cell mimicking NMs to other co-adjuvants for the formulation of large spectrum nanovaccines (Figure 16).136,137