“HOW DO VACCINES WORK?”

By: Elaine Balbuena

In 1796, a scientist named Edward Jenner injected cowpox viral material into an eight-year-old child in the hopes of delivering the protection needed to protect humans from terrible smallpox outbreaks. It went off without a hitch. The eight-year-old was given the first ever vaccination to protect him from the sickness. But, in the first place, why did it work? We must first understand how the immune system defends us from infectious illnesses in order to understand how immunizations function.

When foreign germs penetrate our bodies, our immune systems respond in a range of ways in an attempt to discover and kill them. Coughing, sneezing, inflammation, and fever are all signs that the immune system is working to capture, reject, and eliminate dangerous microorganisms from the body. Adaptive immunity, our second line of defense, is activated by these innate immune responses.

B-cells and T-cells are unique cells that are recruited to fight pathogens and retain information about them, building a memory of how to efficiently oppose the invaders. This knowledge will be useful if the same virus affects the body again. Despite this wise response, there is still a risk.

The body must learn how to respond to infections and develop these defenses over time. If the virus is very harmful, the body may be in grave risk even if it is too weak, young, or elderly to fight back when it is invaded. But what if we could predict the immunological response of the body before it became ill? Vaccines may be beneficial in this case. Vaccines are used to activate the body's adaptive immune system without exposing individuals to full-blown illness, and they work on the same principles as the body's natural defenses. As a result, there are many distinct types of vaccinations, each of which has a particular mechanism of action.

We have Live Attenuated Vaccines first. These are created from a lesser and gentler variant of the pathogen.

Then there are Inactive Vaccines. These are the pathogens that have been eliminated. Both forms of vaccines weaken and inactivate germs, ensuring that they do not grow into full-fledged disease. However, they elicit an immune response in the same way that a disease does, teaching the body to detect an attack by creating a pathogen profile in advance.

The disadvantage is that live attenuated vaccines are difficult to develop, and because they are live and potent, they are not suitable for those with weakened immune systems, whereas inactive vaccines do not provide long-lasting immunity.

The subunit vaccine, on the other hand, is made up of only one portion of the pathogen, termed an antigen, which is the element that actually activates the immune response. These vaccines can elicit specific reactions by further isolating certain components of antigens, such as proteins and polysaccharides.

DNA vaccines are a novel type of vaccine being developed by scientists. They identify certain genes that create the antigens the body needs to initiate its immune system response to certain infections for variety.

When those genes are delivered into the human body, they direct cells to produce antigens. This boosts the immune system's reaction and prepares the body for future dangers, and because the vaccinations only contain specific genetic information, they don't contain any other pathogen components that could cause disease and harm the patient.

If these vaccines are successful, we may be able to develop more effective invasive pathogen treatments in the future. Continuing to produce vaccinations, like Edward Jenner's remarkable discovery that sparked modern medicine all those decades ago, may one day help us to treat diseases like HIV, Malaria, and Ebola.