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Making Vaccines
by Rick Groleau
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A vaccine against meningococcal disease or any other disease works by
generating an immune response in the body against some kind of pathogen—a
virus, bacterium, or some other agent that causes the disease. Normally when
a pathogen invades the body, the immune system works to get rid of the
pathogen. Often, though, the immune system gets a slow start, which gives
the pathogen time to multiply and cause trouble. What a vaccine does is expose
the immune system to a less-threatening version of a pathogen and, in
effect, prime it to recognize and quickly eliminate the innocuous pathogen's
harmful counterpart, should it ever invade the body.
This feature lets you create six vaccines in your own virtual laboratory,
using a different technique to produce each one.
Note
This feature, which was originally produced for NOVA's Bioterror Web
site, does not discuss the two types of vaccines currently used against
meningococcal disease. One type, called a polysaccharide vaccine, consists
of sugars extracted from meningococcus bacteria. The other type is a
conjugate vaccine (conjugate means "join together"), which combines the
polysaccharide vaccine with a protein. For more information about meningitis
and its vaccines, check out the Centers for Disease Control's Web site at
http://www.cdc.gov. 
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Killer Disease homepage
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Flash is a plug-in that allows for increased interactivity. If you can see
the animated boxes at left, the plugin is already installed. If you do not see
the boxes, you can install the Flash plugin, or select this feature's
non-Flash version.
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