Crystals And Catalysts

HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system and weakens your ability to fight incoming infections and diseases. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus currently has no cure but there are currently treatments which are able to help people with the virus to live a prolonged, healthy life.  Since there is no cure for HIV, the best way to approach preventing the spread of the virus is by vaccination; enabling the body to fight off the virus before it attacks the immune system.  Researchers in the USA have been working on developing a vaccine capable of inducing "broadly neutralizing" antibodies that can prevent HIV infections.  This new vaccine technique aims to immunize people with a series of different engineered HIV proteins as immunogens to "teach" the immune system to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV. This in turn, will prepare the immune system to fight off an incoming virus which carries similar proteins to the HIV proteins. The group of

The flu virus mutates every year and there are many different strains of flu virus. If you are in the “at risk” group of people you’re required to take a flu shot every year / every flu season. This can be very cumbersome, so scientists are working on developing a universal flu vaccine that would be active against all strains of the virus and you wouldn’t need inoculations every year. Promising research published in Science Express journal, demonstrates how the team of scientists at the  Crucell Vaccine Institute at the Janssen Center of Excellence for Immunoprophylaxis in the Netherlands (and other research centres in the US) , have extracted different antigens from most flu virus and placed them in the vaccine to mimic the flu virus and stimulate the immune response to produce antibodies in defence, and also keep in memory different types of flu virus, so in the future, dealing with the virus is easier and less burdensome on the victim.  Final results of the study have de

This weeks words are from Immunology: Antibacterial Agent ,  Antibiotic and Antiviral