Browsing by Subject "Pertussis"
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Item Overlooked casualties : stories of families affected by vaccine-preventable diseases(2012-05) Haelle, Tara Susan; Darling, Dennis Carlyle; Minutaglio, BillThe invention of the vaccine has been one of the greatest public health triumphs of the modern world. Each new vaccine has saved thousands - even millions - of lives worldwide, but this success has been fraught with controversy over the safety and even the effectiveness of vaccines. Vaccines have not always had a spotless safety record, but today’s vaccines are incredibly safe and continue to protect millions of people against diseases that have significantly declined or nearly disappeared from the developing world. It is this very success that has led many people to forget, or never discover, what those diseases are and how destructive they can be. This report tells the story of several families whose lives were deeply affected by vaccine-preventable diseases, accompanied with images that help tell their story. Following these stories is a broader discussion of the issues related to vaccines, the misunderstandings and misinformation that often circulate about them, a brief mention of their safety and efficacy, and a general discussion of many of the diseases they can prevent.Item Recent advances and challenges in antigen engineering & vaccine development(2014-05) Kornahrens, William Joseph; Maynard, Jennifer Anne, 1974-Vaccines play a vital role in public health by preventing infectious disease across the globe. Vaccine formulations represent a weakened form of a microbe or toxin that is injected into the human body to elicit an immune response, generating antibodies to protect against a future infection. To this day, it is a challenge to identify and engineer important antigens and epitopes to focus this immune response in a safe and effective manner. The example of Bordetella pertussis is used to highlight the problems and lessons learned in designing a vaccine for this global epidemic. In particular, this review will focus on the advantages and disadvantages of chemical versus genetic detoxification and whole cell versus acellular vaccines in the context of pertussis. The latter part of this review will provide a summary of general strategies, such as epitope mapping and manipulation, synthesis of truncated variants, reverse vaccinology, and structural vaccinology, that have been successful in addressing increasingly complex diseases. Collectively, these techniques provide an invaluable set of tools to focus the immune response by finding and engineering specific antigens and epitopes.