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Vaccines on a New
Frontier
| Vaccines
expose you to the proteins
of bacteria
and viruses
that cause disease. The vaccine stimulates an immune response "memory."
This means that if you have been vaccinated against a disease and
then are exposed to the disease, your body will fight the disease
faster and better. To work, the vaccine must stimulate your immune
system without making you sick. |
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Child
getting vaccinated. Courtesy of the National Institute for Diabetes
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. |
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| Children receive vaccines to protect
them from many dangerous and deadly diseases like whooping
cough, mumps,
measles,
and diptheria.
Scientists are working vaccines which will help to prevent several
illnesses, including one of the most common in children -- ear infections.
Adults and children can get a vaccine against the influenza virus
every autumn. The influenza virus causes the flu. Recently, the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) ran a trial with
a new influenza vaccine created with recombinant DNA. The recombinant
DNA influenza vaccine caused fewer side effects and could be used
at higher doses. Because the vaccine is not made using chicken eggs
-- the way most viral vaccines are made -- people with egg allergies
can take it. |
Enzyme
Replacement Therapy and Gaucher Disease
| The 14-year old girl in this photo has
Gaucher Disease (GD). GD is a genetic disease that affects the storage
of fats in the body. A fatty molecule
called "glucocerebroside" is normally broken down in the
body by the enzyme
"glucoerebrosidase." A mutation in the gene
for the enzyme glucocerebrosidase, causes the enzyme to be less active
than normal. Because it is not broken down, the fat accumulates in
the spleen, liver, and bone marrow of the person with GD. People with
GD suffer anemia,
bone damage, swelling of the liver and spleen, and sometimes neurological
damage. |
Girl with Gaucher Disease.
Courtesy of Dr. Roscoe Brady, National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke. |
Girl
at 17 with Dr. Roscoe Brady. Courtesy of Dr. Roscoe Brady,
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. |
This is the same
girl, after she received enzyme replacement therapy. She is standing
with Dr. Roscoe Brady of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke (NINDS). In 1991, twelve people with Gaucher Disease received
the purified enzyme glucocerebrosidase, which had been isolated from
human placental tissue. All responded dramatically. Dr. Roscoe Brady’s
team had devoted 17 years to perfecting this therapy, in which the
impaired enzyme was simply replaced. In 1995, a recombinant version
of the enzyme was developed, which is as effective as the placental
preparation used previously. |
For an indepth look at Dr. Brady's work on Gaucher Disease,
see our on-line exhibit entitled,
"Researching
Disease: Dr. Roscoe Brady & Gaucher Disease".
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