Monday, March 23, 2015

Protection Without a Vaccine?

In February 2015, scientists at Scripps Research Institute said that they were able to develop an artificial antibody that, after being injected into monkeys infected with HIV, was able to inactivate the virus and protect them from future infections. They haven't limited this to just HIV, but Ebola, malaria, influenza and hepatitis as well. Dr. Michael Farzan, among other scientists at Scripps, believes that this treatment is a very large step forward against HIV. According to the article, it is not a vaccine, but rather re-engineering the animals in order to boost their immunity and cause resistance. The first human trial is still underway and there are several others planned for the future. 

 Whether or not it will work in humans is still a question. Again, it is not a vaccine and therefore may take some convincing in the community. Vaccines work by triggering the immune system to create antibodies in order to fight off the disease by introducing weakened or dead pathogens. Their work, however, is a gene therapy isolating particular genes that produce the powerful antibodies and also synthesizing artificial ones, because vaccines aren't always effective. The reason HIV vaccines aren't very effective is because there are multiple strains and a vaccine can only protect against one of them. Dr. Baltimore states that it is essentially going around the immune system rather than trying to stimulate it. 

I think that it's an interesting idea, although a human trial is necessary before I can have a proper opinion on it. It's understandable why people may not want synthetic modification in their bodies because who knows how long it might take to see any repercussions, if there are any. Vaccines are still very important, but if this can help with diseases where vaccines fail, then it could be a very good and useful things. But again, a human trial is necessary because even if it worked in their animal testing, that doesn't mean it will be guaranteed to work with humans the same way.

1 comment:

  1. I have to say finding a vaccine to prevent HIV would be one of the biggest events in science next to finding a cure for cancer. It is important for scientists to use the method on humans because something that works on animals may not work for us. Although researchers do not know the consequences of re-engineering the animals to boost their immunity, it could be a huge step for finding resistance against disease in the future

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