Transformation in Vaccine Development

Discovery of immune cell able to defend against mutating virus

Vaccinations aim to provide enduring protection from a disease but unfortunately discovered till now are only able to fight against a particular strand of virus. For example, vaccine against influenza has to be administered annually to evade the constantly mutating virus. Scientists are in a regular surge to dig out a kind of immune cell which could simultaneously fight all the strands of a single virus. Dr. Harry White, from the University of Exeter who is leading the research of the Wellcome Trust, proudly announces that scientist has partially succeeded in dealing up with this phenomenon. He explains that immune system of human body is able to pinpoint all the variants of an individual virus. So the need of the hour is to make an immune system to learn and protect the body from the whole set of variant viruses. This is the way broadly protective vaccines could be made.

So how does this work? Immature and underdeveloped cells are introduced to the immune system, these cells being less developed are less focused on the infecting a particular virus. So if the mutation has taken place, the antibodies produced by cells are equally lethal for all the strains. A scientist from the University of Bristol, University of Birmingham and the University of Exeter, have piloted this research. The experiment is conducted on mice that were injected with proteins from various viral strains. These proteins were induced successively into the mice over a period of time. Scientists analyzed the antibodies produced by all the proteins. And finally, they were able to recognize those less developed cells which produced less focused antibodies. Professor Tit Ball says that's this invention brings scientists a step closer to their aspiration of making a vaccine which works for all micro-organism. Therefore recapitulating, when different variations of a signal protein are injected into the body, it excites a vicious phenomenon, which leads to a more rigorous response from antibody memory.

Reference:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-discovery-immune-cells-defend-mutating.html