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Making Vaccines
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Here are the instructions you need to create six different types of
vaccines. To find out how a vaccine is made, select a pathogen
below.
Notes
Live vaccines contain living pathogens. These pathogens invade cells
within the body and use those cells to produce many copies of
themselves, just as their more harmful counterparts would. The
"similar pathogen" and "attenuated" vaccines discussed in this
feature are examples of live vaccines. Although these vaccines
trigger a full immune response, there is a small risk of the viruses
within evolving into more-virulent strains. Non-live vaccines
contain agents that do not reproduce in the body. "Killed,"
"subunit," and "toxoid" are examples of non-live vaccines. These
vaccines trigger a partial immune response. Genetic vaccines are
non-live vaccines that trigger a full immune response.
The procedures outlined in this feature have been greatly
simplified. Also, some steps are meant to show what is done but not
how. For example, a gene cannot be plucked out of DNA using
tweezers, and there's no box-like device called a purifier that can
extract toxins from bacteria as well as viruses from pus.
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