The first known vaccine was that of using cowpox to vaccinate humans from smallpox as developed by Jenner in 1796, however ‘variolation’ was a practise used in Asia since the 11th Century. Subsequently by 1881 Pasteur developed several animal vaccines based on pathogen attenuation. Thus, together with the dawn of bacteriology and developments, antitoxins and vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, anthrax, cholera, plague, typhoid, tuberculosis, and more were developed through the 1930s. During the middle of the 20th century methods for growing viruses in the laboratory led to rapid discoveries and innovations, including the creation of vaccines for polio. Researchers targeted other common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella, and vaccines for these diseases reduced the disease burden greatly. Innovative techniques now drive vaccine research, with recombinant DNA technology and new delivery techniques leading scientists in new directions. In veterinary industries, there are still several crude vaccines incorporating live, attenuated and killed pathogen vaccines which are still successful. Some species remain a challenge to develop safe alternative vaccines such as ticks and the fatal diseases they carry. Bovine babesiosis for example is caused by 2 species which are controlled by live attenuated strains of these Apicomplexa. Recombinant vaccine development to date has not been successful as also noted for closely related Plasmodium parasites in malaria. The babesiosis vaccine strains can revert to virulence following tick challenge thus protection relies on herd endemic stability through widespread vaccination. Genomics or reverse vaccinology (RV) has impacted vaccine development strategies over the last 10+ years with some successes in human and livestock vaccines (e.g. cattle tick). One of the main differences for livestock vaccines is that they need to be produced cheaply to be adopted by industry. It remains to be seen if novel RV approaches will be able to develop safe alternatives to successful live attenuated animal vaccines.