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Step 1
Use the sterile petri dish to collect fluid from
pustules on the cow's udder.
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To create a vaccine that will protect you against a
pathogen, you usually begin with that pathogen and
alter it in some way. Not so with smallpox. To
create this vaccine, you begin with another virus
that is similar to the smallpox virus, yet different
enough not to bring on the smallpox disease once it
enters your body. This similar virus is cowpox.
The cow to the left has been intentionally infected
with cowpox virus. The fluid that you collect from
virus-caused pustules on the cow's udder contains
many copies of the virus.
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Step 2
Use the purifier to isolate the viruses.
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Smallpox vaccines contains cowpox viruses but not
the bacteria and other impurities found in the fluid
collected from such pustules.
To make the vaccine, therefore, you'll need to
separate the cowpox viruses from the rest of the
fluid.
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Step 3
Fill the syringe with the purified cowpox
viruses.
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The smallpox vaccine is a live vaccine; the cowpox
viruses it contains will invade cells in your body,
multiply, and spread to other cells in your body,
just as the smallpox viruses would. And as with
smallpox, the body's immune system will mount an
attack against the cowpox and subsequently always
"remember" what it looks like. Then, if cowpox or
the similar smallpox ever enters the body, the
immune system will quickly get rid of the
invaders.
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Done
The smallpox vaccine is complete.
Select another pathogen.
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Congratulations. You have just created a vaccine for
smallpox.
At one time, cows were used to create the smallpox
vaccine. In fact, the decades-old stockpile in the
U.S. today was made using live calves through a
process similar to the one outlined here.
Advancements in biotechnology, however, have led to
more efficient procedures that make use of
bioreactors.
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