Vaccination

Question 1

What is a vaccine?

Answer 1

Something that stimulates the immune system without causing serious harm or side effects

Question 2

What is the aim of immunisation?

Answer 2

Provoke immunological memory to protect individual against a particular disease if you later encounter it

Question 3

What would comprise an ideal vaccine?

Answer 3

Completely safe
Easy to administer
Single dose
Needle free 
Cheap 
Stable 
Active against all variants

Question 4

How do vaccines work?

Answer 4

Train the immune system to recognise and remember the infection without actually getting infected

Question 5

What are the main features of immune memory?

Answer 5

Improves efficacy of the innate immune response
Needs time to develop
Secondary response is stronger and faster

Question 6

How do vaccines stop infection?

Answer 6

Prevention of entry
Killing infected cells
Boosting immune response

Question 7

What are correlates of protection?

Answer 7

Measurable signs that a person is immune

Question 8

What do correlates of protection enable?

Answer 8

Smarter vaccine design

Smaller efficacy studies

Question 9

What is affinity maturation?

Answer 9

Selective pressure on the B-cells that makes the antibody they make better
Why we need multiple rounds of vaccination

Question 10

What is the basic reproduction number?

Answer 10

R0- the number of cases one case generated on average over the course of their infectious period
Vaccination reduces the R0 number
Basis of herd immunity

Question 11

What forms of antigen can be found in a vaccine?

Answer 11

Inactivated protein
Recombinant protein
Live attenuated pathogen
Dead pathogen
Carbohydrate

Question 12

What are the main features of inactive toxoid vaccine?

Answer 12

E.g Tetanus toxoid
Induces antibody that blocks the toxoid from binding nerves
Cheap and safe

Question 13

What are the main features of recombinant protein vaccines?

Answer 13

Recombinant protein from pathogen
Induces classic neutralising antibodies
Safe
Expensive

Question 14

How do vaccine deal with bacterial capsules?

Answer 14

Conjugate vaccines

Question 15

What is a conjugate vaccine?

Answer 15

Polysaccharide coat component couple to an immunogenic ‘carrier’ protein
Protein enlist CD4 help to boost B cell response to the polysaccharide
Expensive

Question 16

What are the main features of dead pathogen vaccines?

Answer 16

Pathogen chemically killed

Induces antibody and T-cell responses

Question 17

What are the main features of live attenuated vaccines?

Answer 17

Attenuated by a serial passage that leads to loss of virulence
Trigger innate response and boost adaptive immune response

Question 18

Define adjuvant

Answer 18

Substances used in combination with a specific antigen that produces a more robust immune response than the antigen alone

Question 19

What do adjuvants do?

Answer 19

Engage with pattern recognition receptors
Induce danger signals that activate dendritic cells to present antigen to T-cells
Also trigger to license the response