Re: How Cells From Immune System Respond To Vaccination, MIT Engineers Paint Most Detailed Portrait Yet

[Guest guest]

" Currently, the only way to test whether a vaccine has worked is to

examine a

patient's blood sample for the presence of antibodies. However, such

tests

do not offer a comprehensive picture of the immune system's ability

to fight

off infection, said Love.

" We don't know the diversity of antibodies generated, and we don't

know how

well they're responding to the pathogen. We don't know how poised the

immune

system is to respond to challenges it might face, " he said. "

Hmmmmm.....Yet, the vaccine industry can tout an 80% plus " efficacy "

of all vaccines with so many " unknowns " ? Oh I forgot efficacy only

means a clinical antibody response, which in marketing their product

they claim means " protection " . I smell some false advertising.

Alice

>

>

> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/128055.php

> How Cells From Immune System Respond To Vaccination, MIT Engineers

Paint

> Most Detailed Portrait Yet

> Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines

> Article Date: 04 Nov 2008 - 5:00 PST

>

> MIT engineers have painted the most detailed portrait yet of how

single

> cells from the immune system respond to vaccination. The work,

reported in

> the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences

> the week of Nov. 3, could help researchers develop and test new

vaccines for

> diseases including HIV, fungal infections and antibiotic-resistant

bacterial

> infections.

>

> " We're building a toolkit which we can use to look at how an immune

response

> develops successfully. Then we aim to use that information for

reverse

> engineering vaccines that would invoke that same type of response, "

said J.

> Love, assistant professor of chemical engineering and

senior

> author of the paper.

>

> Vaccines usually consist of an inactivated virus or bacterium that

provokes

> B cells from the immune system to generate antibodies that attack

the

> infectious agent.

>

> Currently, the only way to test whether a vaccine has worked is to

examine a

> patient's blood sample for the presence of antibodies. However,

such tests

> do not offer a comprehensive picture of the immune system's ability

to fight

> off infection, said Love.

>

> " We don't know the diversity of antibodies generated, and we don't

know how

> well they're responding to the pathogen. We don't know how poised

the immune

> system is to respond to challenges it might face, " he said.

>

> His team's new approach generates information including the number

of B

> cells present, whether they produce antibodies, the type of

antibody they

> produce (for example, those that promote a long or short term

response), the

> specificity (for a target like a protein from a virus or

bacterium), and

> affinity (strength of binding to the target).

>

> " This is the first time that it's possible to look at the diversity

of

> antibody responses from primary cells, and measure a full set of

their

> molecular characteristics, directly, " said Love. " This really does

give you

> a snapshot. "

>

> Currently, three different lab tests are needed to get all of that

> information, and one of the tests requires a very large number of

cells. The

> new method works with as few as 100,000 cells (or the number in a

small drop

> of blood).

>

> In their PNAS study, the researchers took B cells from mice that

received a

> series of protein injections mimicking vaccination. They positioned

the

> cells into individual containers, arranged in a dense lattice,

molded into a

> soft rubber. Borrowing from an artistic engraving technique used for

> printmaking, the researchers use that array of cells to " print " the

> antibodies produced by the cells onto the surface of multiple

identical

> glass slides.

>

> Each of those slides is exposed to different concentrations of the

protein

> used for the model vaccine, allowing the researchers to measure how

strongly

> each antibody binds to the target. They can then map those results

back to

> the original immune cell, pinpointing precisely which cells

produced which

> antibodies and how strong the cell's response was.

>

> In addition to vaccine development, the technique could be used to

build a

> profile of a patient's immune system and its response to treatment

for

> allergies, cancer, or infectious diseases. " You could potentially

track how

> the immune system is responding over time, " Love said.

>

> Lead author of the paper is Craig Story, former postdoctoral

associate at

> the Whitehead Institute, now associate professor of biology at

Gordon

> College. Other authors are Eliseo Papa, a grad student in the

Harvard-MIT

> Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Chih-Chi Hu, a

> post-doctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute, Jehnna Ronan, a

former

> Harvard undergraduate at the Whitehead Institute, and Hidde Ploegh,

> professor of biology and member of the Whitehead Institute.

>

> The research was funded by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,

the

> National Institutes of Health, and the National Academies Keck

Futures

> Initiative.

>

> By Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

>

>