Step 1
Use the sterile petri dish to collect fluid from pustules on the cow's udder.
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To create a vaccine that will protect you against a pathogen, you usually begin
with that pathogen and alter it in some way. Not so with smallpox. To create
this vaccine, you begin with another virus that is similar to the smallpox
virus, yet different enough not to bring on the smallpox disease once it enters
your body. This similar virus is cowpox.
The cow to the left has been intentionally infected with cowpox virus. The
fluid that you collect from virus-caused pustules on the cow's udder contains
many copies of the virus.
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Step 2
Use the purifier to isolate the viruses.
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Smallpox vaccines contains cowpox viruses but not the bacteria and other
impurities found in the fluid collected from such pustules.
To make the vaccine, therefore, you'll need to separate the cowpox viruses from
the rest of the fluid.
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Step 3
Fill the syringe with the purified cowpox viruses.
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The smallpox vaccine is a live vaccine; the cowpox viruses it contains will
invade cells in your body, multiply, and spread to other cells in your body,
just as the smallpox viruses would. And as with smallpox, the body's immune
system will mount an attack against the cowpox and subsequently always
"remember" what it looks like. Then, if cowpox or the similar smallpox ever
enters the body, the immune system will quickly get rid of the invaders.
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Done
The smallpox vaccine is complete.
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Congratulations. You have just created a vaccine for smallpox.
At one time, cows were used to create the smallpox vaccine. In fact, the
decades-old stockpile in the U.S. today was made using live calves through a
process similar to the one outlined here. Advancements in biotechnology,
however, have led to more efficient procedures that make use of bioreactors.
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