Lecture 6 Flashcards
What is recombinant DNA technology?
It involves combining DNA molecules from different organisms and inserting them into a host organism to create new genetic combinations.
What are the two main stages of the biopharmaceutical production process?
Upstream processing and downstream processing.
What is the focus of upstream processing in biopharmaceutical production?
Optimizing the growth of the production cell line in industrial volumes to produce large quantities of the target product.
What are the three stages of downstream processing?
Capture, intermediate purification, and polishing.
Name two classes of vaccines.
Live-attenuated vaccines and inactivated vaccines.
What are live-attenuated vaccines, and what is a key limitation?
They use a weakened form of the microbe causing the disease to generate a strong immune response but are not suitable for people with weakened immune systems.
What are inactivated vaccines, and why might they require booster shots?
Inactivated vaccines use a dead or weakened version of the disease-causing agent, and their immunity is not as strong as live vaccines.
How do toxoid vaccines work?
They use an inactivated toxin from the pathogen to generate immunity, often requiring booster shots for ongoing protection.
What are subunit vaccines?
Subunit vaccines use specific antigens to trigger an immune response, including polysaccharide and recombinant protein subunits.
What do polysaccharide subunit vaccines target, and what is a production challenge?
They target the polysaccharide capsule of bacteria, but their production processes are laborious and costly.
How do DNA vaccines work?
They use a DNA plasmid encoding an antigenic protein, which the host cell produces, prompting an immune response.
What is the function of viral vector vaccines?
They use a modified virus to deliver genetic material that instructs host cells to make a protein, triggering an immune response.
What is unique about mRNA vaccines?
They deliver mRNA wrapped in lipid nanoparticles to instruct cells to make antigenic proteins, offering shorter manufacturing times and no risk of infection.
Vaccine function
Improves immunity to a particular disease.
