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Casey Finnerty

Selecting the Viruses in the Seasonal Influenza (Flu) Vaccine | Health Professionals | ... - 0 views

  • It takes at least six months to produce large quantities of influenza vaccine. For vaccine to be delivered in time for vaccination to begin in October and November, manufacturers may begin to grow one or more of the virus strains in January based on their best guess as to what strains are most likely to be included in the vaccine.
  • Currently, only viruses grown in eggs can be used as vaccine virus strains. If specimens have been grown in other cell lines, they cannot be used for vaccine strains. However, more and more laboratories do not use eggs to grow influenza viruses, making it difficult to obtain potential vaccine strains. In addition, some influenza viruses, like H3N2 viruses, grow poorly in eggs, making it even more difficult to obtain possible vaccine strains.
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    Another follow-up on how viruses are chosen for the seasonal influenza vaccine, and what viruses are used for the current vaccine.
Casey Finnerty

Flu Deaths Reach Epidemic Level, but May Be at Peak - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Although the report supported getting flu shots, it said that new vaccines offering lifelong protection against all flu strains, instead of annual partial protection against a mix-and-match set, must be created.
  • “Vaccine effectiveness” is a very different metric from vaccine-virus match, which is done in a lab. Vaccine efficacy is measured by interviewing hundreds of sick or recovering patients who had positive flu tests and asking whether and when they had received shots.
  • During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, many elderly Americans had natural protection, presumably from flus they caught in the 1930s or ’40s.
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  • “Think about that,” Dr. Osterholm said. “Even though they were old, they were still protected. We’ve got to figure out how to capture that kind of immunity — which current vaccines do not.”
  • Dr. Bresee acknowledged the difficulties, saying: “If I had the perfect answer as to how to make a better flu vaccine, I’d probably get a Nobel Prize.”
  • a preliminary study rated this year’s vaccine as 62 percent effective, even though it is a good match for the most worrisome virus circulating.
  • urged Americans to keep getting flu shots.
  • Even though deaths stepped — barely — into epidemic territory for the first time last Saturday, the C.D.C. officials expressed no alarm, and said it was possible that new flu infections were peaking in some parts of the country.
  • Epidemiologists count how many death certificates are filed in a flu year, compare the number with normal years, and estimate what percentage were probably flu-related.
  • The C.D.C.’s vaccine effectiveness study bore out the point of view of a report released last year by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. It said that the shot’s effectiveness had been “overpromoted and overhyped,” said Michael T. Osterholm, the center’s director.
  • At the same time, he praised the C.D.C. for measuring vaccine effectiveness in midseason. “We’re the only ones in the world who have data like that,” he said.
  • “To get a vaccine across the ‘Valley of Death’ is likely to cost $1 billion,”
  • the metric means the shot “reduces by 62 percent your chance of getting a flu so bad that you have to go to a doctor or hospital.”
  • “far from perfect, but by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza.”
  • Most vaccinations given in childhood for threats like measles and diphtheria are 90 percent effective or better. But flu viruses mutate so fast that they must be remade annually.
Sarah Muncy

ScienceDirect.com - Vaccine - Intranasal and intramuscular immunization with Baculoviru... - 0 views

  • An anti-malarial transmission-blocking vaccine (TBV) that prevents fertilization and/or ookinete/oocyst development within the mosquito is an attractive strategy to limit the transmission of malaria
  • The present study used this system to generate a Plasmodium vivax transmission-blocking immunogen (AcNPV-Dual-Pvs25).
  • Plasmodium vivax
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  • A variety of expression vectors (e.g., Escherichia coli, Pichia pastoris and DNA) have been used to express Pvs25 protein which has been administered alone or in combination with adjuvants
  • To date these studies suggest that the recombinant protein currently requires both not only linear, but conformation dependent epitopes, and a strong adjuvant to induce transmission-blocking antibodies.
  • Intranasal and intramuscular immunization with Baculovirus Dual Expression System-based Pvs25 vaccine substantially blocks Plasmodium vivax transmission
  • Recently, we have developed a new vaccine vector system based on the baculovirus Autographa californica nucleopolyhedrosis virus (AcNPV) termed the “Baculovirus Dual Expression System”, which drives expression of vaccine candidate antigens by a dual promoter that consists of tandemly arranged baculovirus-derived polyhedrin and mammalian-derived CMV promoters. It has been shown that AcNPV, an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus that naturally infects insects, possesses strong adjuvant properties that can activate dendritic cell-mediated innate immunity
  • Mucosal vaccines have several attractive features compared with parenteral vaccines (e.g., safety, cost-effectiveness and ease of administration), but studies on their use have been limited almost exclusively to protection against mucosally transmitted pathogens. We provide evidence that i.n. immunization is a feasible alternative for preventing malaria, which is transmitted through non-mucosal routes
  • These results are consistent with our previous work showing that intranasal immunization with the baculovirus-based vaccine induced strong systemic humoral immune responses with high titres of antigen-specific antibodies and conferred complete protection against malaria blood-stage challenge
  • which can induce immunological memory against heterologous antigens in a rodent model; however, it is precluded from clinical use due to its enterotoxicity and potential hazardous effects on olfactory nerves [22]. In contrast, a baculovirus-based delivery system may offer an attractive immunization method, as AcNPV exhibits low cytotoxicity and is incapable of replication in mammalian cells
  • The data described here adds to previously presented data showing the significant potential of the baculovirus dual expression system against the blood stages of the parasite
  • but also demonstrates clearly its ability to induce antibodies against the ookinete surface protein Pvs25, and to elicit a transmission-blocking immune response against the P. vivax isolates from endemic areas, and a transgenic rodent malaria parasite model in preliminary studies.
  • One was SMFA on peripheral blood from P. vivax infected patients.
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    Reference paper #2. Gave me information on malaria and baculoviruses.
Casey Finnerty

Reassessing Flu Shots as the Season Draws Near - NYTimes.com - 3 views

  • “I say, ‘Use this vaccine,’ ” he said. “The safety profile is actually quite good. But we have oversold it. Use it — but just know it’s not going to work nearly as well as everyone says.”
  • “Not having evidence doesn’t prove it doesn’t work; we just don’t know,” said Dr. Roger Thomas, a Cochrane Collaboration coordinator for the University of Calgary in Alberta, who was an author of both of the reviews. “The intelligent decision would be to have large, publicly funded independent trials.”
  • “Does it work as well as the measles vaccine? No, and it’s not likely to. But the vaccine works,” Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of epidemiology and prevention in the C.D.C.’s influenza division, said. And research is advancing to improve the effectiveness of the vaccine.
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  • Another option for those who want to reduce their risk of influenza and flulike infections may be simply this: Wash your hands more often. There is good evidence this works.
    • Sarah Muncy
       
      Whaaa? Wait, what? That's like selling elephant insurance. Sure, we can't PROVE it's working, but that doesn't mean it's NOT. Is this true? I never imagined data wasn't there to show vaccines work to this degree- I'm so confused.
  • “It does not protect as promoted. It’s all a sales job: it’s all public relations.”
Casey Finnerty

How Influenza (Flu) Vaccines Are Made | Seasonal Influenza (Flu) | CDC - 0 views

  • The most common way that flu vaccines are made is using an egg-based manufacturing process that has been in existence for more than 70 years. Egg-based vaccine manufacturing is used to make both
  • The most common way that flu vaccines are made is using an egg-based manufacturing process that has been in existence for more than 70 years.
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    As a follow-up to yesterday, here is a nice summary on influenza vaccine production.
Casey Finnerty

Dr. Donald A. Henderson, Who Helped End Smallpox, Dies at 87 - The New York Times - 1 views

  • Dr. Donald A. Henderson, a leader of one of mankind’s greatest public health triumphs, the eradication of smallpox, died on Friday in Towson, Md. He was 87.
  • died in a hospice of complications of a hip fracture, including infection with antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus, a dangerous pathogen he had himself researched and raised alarms about
  • The last known case was found in a hospital cook in Somalia in 1977.
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  • The only other disease to have been banished from the earth is rinderpest, a little-known relative of measles that kills hoofed animals and once caused widespread starvation in Africa; it was eradicated in 2011.
  • Smallpox, caused by the variola virus, was long one of mankind’s most terrifying scourges.
  • it killed almost a third of its victims, often through pneumonia or brain inflammation.
  • Many others were left blind from corneal ulcerations or severely disfigured by pockmarks.
  • Because it killed 80 percent of the American Indians who caught it, it was a major factor in the European conquest of the New World.
  • In 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner, an English physician, infected a young boy with cowpox taken from a blister on a milkmaid’s hand. Cowpox, a mild disease, protected those who had it from smallpox, and the modern vaccine era began.
  • Dr. Henderson quickly realized that trying to vaccinate vast populations was futile and switched to “ring vaccination.”
  • Dr. Foege, who is considered the father of this tactic, said it was “invented by accident” during a 1967 Nigerian outbreak when he had very little vaccine on hand.
  • “The first night, we asked ourselves what we would do if we were a virus bent on immortality,”
  • In 1977, success in hand, Dr. Henderson became dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.“He was an imposing guy — physically big and very confident,” said Dr. Michael J. Klag, the school’s current dean, who was a student in that era. “He did not suffer fools gladly, and you were never sure if you were a fool or not.”
  • He gloomily foresaw failure for most other disease-elimination campaigns. The “siren song of eradication,” he once wrote, had led to goals that were more “evangelical” than attainable.
  • The problem, he would explain, was that each viral foe was so different. Smallpox had many weaknesses to exploit; it had no animal host. Every case can be found because victims have pox on their faces, and one vaccination provides lifetime immunity.
  • In 2011, when Bill Gates threw the full weight of his foundation into fighting polio, he struggled to explain how he would overcome such obstacles and, at the end of an interview, turned to an aide and said aloud, “I’ve got to get my D. A. Henderson response down better.”
  • The campaign, many experts have noted, succeeded just in time. A few years later, the virus that causes AIDS spread across Africa. Because the live smallpox vaccine can grow in an immune-compromised person into a huge, rotting, ultimately fatal lesion, it would have been impossible to deploy it.
Sarah Muncy

ScienceDirect.com - Vaccine - Hemagglutinin Displayed Baculovirus Protects Against High... - 0 views

    • Sarah Muncy
       
      So, the baculovirus on TOP of having the H5HA on it, can also get the immune system to kick in better?
  • It is remarkable that low doses (103pfu/mouse) of BVs act as an effective adjuvant [41]. Therefore, reducing BV concentration and elongating vaccination intervals may prevent memory responses to BV administration
  • scanning densitometry
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  • Foreign immunogens or peptides can be displayed on the envelope of AcMNPV by fusion with the baculovirus major envelope protein gp64
  • Baculoviruses have strong adjuvant activity to promote humoral and cellular immune responses against coadministered antigens, activate dendritic cells maturation, induce the production of cytokines, chemokines, and type I IFNs
  • There are two influenza vaccine approaches licensed in the US; the inactivated, split vaccine and the live-attenuated virus vaccine. Inactivated vaccines can efficiently induce humoral immune responses but generally only poor cellular immune responses.
  • Therefore, influenza HA can be displayed on the surface of baculovirus
  • virus-like particle (VLP)
  • Even though cellular immune responses cannot confer sterilizing immunity, they are able to reduce the severity of infection and lower morbidity and mortality rates [47], and antigen-specific memory T cells are able to rapidly respond to a secondary virus infection [45]. Furthermore, cellular immune responses to the conserved epitopes contained in vaccines may provide cross-protective immunity against different subtypes of influenza virus infection
  • To confirm that each HA was incorporated on the envelope of baculoviruses, supernatants from infected Sf9 cells were used to perform hemagglutination assay
  • Most BV display strategies rely on gp64 protein which is the major envelope protein of baculovirus.
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    This paper gave me a better understanding of some aspects of my focal paper that were unclear. How to test for HA, and how baculoviruses may be adjuvants in addition to expression vectors.
Casey Finnerty

The strange tale of Canada's ebola vaccine: Walkom | Toronto Star - 0 views

  • In short, he Canadian government not only sold off commercial rights to its Ebola vaccine to a for-profit firm at sale-price rates. It also paid the lion’s share of costs required to test the vaccine for human use.
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    This article tells the fascinating (and somewhat mysterious) story behind the licensing of the Canadian Ebola vaccine, one of two vaccines fast-tracked for clinical trials. I recommend this read to anyone interested in biotech and intellectual property.
Casey Finnerty

Hilary Koprowski, Developed Live-Virus Polio Vaccine, Dies at 96 - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    Fascinating obituary on the scientist who developed the first attenuated virus vaccine for polio. Surprise! It was not Salk nor Sabin.
Casey Finnerty

The Quest to End the Flu - Carl Zimmer - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Fauci is more excited about something called a recombinant protein vaccine, which does not rely on growing viruses, even though it is cell-based. At Protein Sciences, a small Connecticut biotech firm, researchers isolate the gene for the flu virus’s surface proteins and insert it into an entirely different species of virus, called a baculovirus. The baculovirus infects insect cells and causes them to make huge amounts of the surface proteins, which the company uses to make Flublok, the only recombinant protein flu vaccine currently available.
  • The researchers have tried various methods, including the same one used to make Flublok—insect cells churning out surface proteins.
  • “The eggs should be long gone,” grumbles Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
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  • Manufacturers for the most part still make flu vaccines the way they did in World War II: in chicken eggs.
Casey Finnerty

Production of swine flu vaccine is way behind - Yahoo! News - 2 views

  • Also, Protein Sciences Corp. of Meriden, Conn., landed a five-year, $147 million contract to develop a vaccine using its recombinant technology — flu proteins grown in insect cells. The hope is that the first doses would be available within 12 weeks of the beginning of a pandemic. That is about twice as fast as flu vaccine produced from eggs.
Vernon Leighton

NOVA | Vaccines-Calling the Shots - 1 views

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    Upcoming public television show on Vaccines.
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