vaccine
Prevent the Pain, Get the Shingles Vaccine
As someone who recently had the distinctly unpleasurable experience of shingles, I decided to research the vaccines available for this viral disease. Shingles is caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), which also causes chicken pox (Figure 1). VZV is a type of herpes virus. Presently, in the US, most children are vaccinated against chicken pox. … Read more
Can you be vaccinated against yourself?
What is a vaccine? A vaccine may be described as medicine that stimulates an immune response with a “memory.” Many people also consider a vaccine to be a medicine that prevents a disease caused by a pathogen. Indeed, the first vaccines were ones that prevented infectious diseases, such as polio and measles. Some vaccines have … Read more
New Hope for Lyme Disease Prevention
Lyme disease is caused by bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia afzelii, and Borrelia garinii) that are delivered by a bite from an infected tick (Figure 1). The Centers for Disease Control (1) recommend a preventative (prophylactic) single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline for adults bitten by a mosquito with a high probability of carrying the Lyme-causing … Read more
Proteomics Improves Antigen Prediction
How will we benefit from being able to accurately predict the peptide antigens that the immune system can recognize? Vaccine development would be a major beneficiary of such knowledge (Figure 1). We could produce more effective and safer vaccines. We could develop vaccines for pathogens for which no vaccine is currently available. We could ensure … Read more