Ch. 14.1 & 2- A Brief History of Vaccines and Overview of Them Flashcards
Define Variolation
A vaccination process practiced in China in the 1400’s where dried small pox scabs were blown on the face of a healthy person and the resulting infection was usually minor and resulted in life time immunity.
How can vaccines be given?
Injection, inhalation, or ingestion
Define herd immunity
When someone is likely to be safe from a disease not because the y have been vaccinated, but because so many people around them have been vaccinated that they are unlikely to come into contact with the disease causing pathogen.
Who tested a hypothesis about small pox in 1796?
What was the hypothesis?
Edward Jenner
He thought that people who had suffered from cow pox would not be susceptible to small pox. This turned out to be mostly true.
What can vaccines consist of?
Weakened (attenuated) microbes
Fragments of the microbe
Isolated inactivated toxins
Genetically manufactured portion of the microbe
Define attenuated vaccines
Vaccines that are made of pathogens that have been rendered incapable of causing disease. These tend to simulate encounters with pathogens in nature so they usually produce the most potent immunological responses and help develop long term cell memory.
Define subunit vaccines
Vaccines that are made of portions of a pathogen.
Define Purified subunit vaccines
Made of purified subunits of an actual pathogen, or made of genetically engineered parts of a pathogen.
Define toxoid vaccine
Vaccine made of inactivated protein toxin.
Define conjugate of polysaccharide vaccines
Polysaccharides are conjugated or linked to a component that enhances immunogenicity.
Define whole agent vaccines
These contain the entire pathogen that has been rendered unable to cause disease by heat, chemicals, or radiation. These are good because they can’t cause disease or mutate. Host must be exposed to this several times for complete immunity to be reached.
Define recombinant vaccines
Vaccines made of subunits that are genetically engineered.
Define DNA vaccines
Require identification of genes that encode highly immunogenic antigens. These genes are placed in a plasmid that is injected into the body. The body’s cells take up the plasmid and reproduce the antigen. The body can then perform the normally immune response.
