Vaccine Injection

The thought of creating vaccines from nucleic acids has existed for a generation, but now MIT investigators seem to have found a way to overcome a generation-old roadblock to that possibility. Their approach is a modified form of the poly(amidoamine) dendrimer/DNA vaccine for Hepatitis B, first reported in 2008. Instead of attaching DNA, the new process uses mRNA sequences, which can be derived from many infectious viruses. These nanoparticles are about the size of virus; so, they can be readily absorbed into cells. Their great advantage is that they can be synthesized in about a week, compared to the months needed to grow attenuated virus for vaccine in hens’ eggs. MORE

Image Credit: commons.wikimedia.com