New reports indicate that Americans who received the swine flu vaccine back in 2009 and 2010 may have an increased risk in developing a rare neurological disease. The disease we are talking about is the Guillain-Barre syndrome. This new study, which was published in The Lancet on March 13, shows that the cases diagnosed with this condition were twice more common during the first month and a half after the administration of the N1H1 vaccine. So, while some specialists claim that there are no connections between taking the shot and being diagnosed with this disease, other claim the opposite.

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Despite this new hypothesis, it is a reality that the swine flu vaccine has prevented more than 700,000 new cases of N1H1. Some statistics even estimate that the number of cases that would have been diagnosed in the lack of this vaccine would have actually reached more than 1.5 million. So, researchers claim that the benefits of the swine flu vaccine outweigh the risks, regardless of their nature.

Still, it is important to know that Guillain-Barre syndrome is an extremely serious condition, too. This disease usually occurs when the immune system attacks nerve cells. It causes weakness and tingling in the legs and arms. In some cases, it can actually lead to full body paralyses. This is not the first time when the Guillain-Barre syndrome is linked to the vaccine administrated for swine flu. Back in 1976, when the same vaccine was used during a swine flu outbreak, specialists believed that one in 10,000 people had an increased risk in developing this hard to cure and rare disorder.

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To be able to reach these results, specialists have analyzed information from more than 23 million people in the United States. All these individuals received a swine flu vaccine in 2009. About six weeks after that moment, a number of 54 new cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome have been recorded. Despite that, it is important to mention that a link between the vaccine and the Guillain-Barre syndrome has not been set. This means that it is yet unclear if the H1N1 vaccine has an increased potential of causing this disorder or not.

It surely looks like the campaign that the Mexican government launched to reduce the number of patients diagnosed with human papillomavirus has reached a new stage. The government is now offering free vaccines to school-age girls. The campaign that the Mexican government has started is best explained by statistics which show that cervical cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer related deaths in the country.

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Statistics indicate that more than 4,000 women die every year from this type of cancer in Mexico. Cervical and uterine cancer mostly affects women in rural areas. This is why the vaccine is so important. “This cancer, unlike others, is preventable,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon said according to Kansascity.com. “It is a great opportunity that human beings have to conquer one of the worst diseases… through a simple vaccine,” he added.

Actually, the government has invested no less than $23 million in 2012 in campaigns willing to reduce the number of new diagnosed cases. Still, the HPV vaccine will not be obligatory, at least for now. It seems that only the girls who accept the vaccine will have it administered. However, officials believe that this week more than 1 million girls aged between 10 and 11 will receive the vaccine. Another 200,000 girls who are not in school will have this vaccine administrated, too.

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In fact, the entire process is more complicated than what it may seem at first. The vaccine is administrated in three separate doses, so it actually is a three-round treatment. However, officials offer guarantees that the vaccine is safe enough and it will cause no harm. It will be totally free.

Concerns on the safety of this vaccine have been raised all around the world, including the United States. Still, researchers from the Mexican National Cancer Institute say that the vaccine has great benefits. Even though these benefits will not be felt on short term, their long term results are absolutely great.

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Mexico is not the first country in the world which sustains a campaign on HPV vaccination. The same thing did Greece, back in 2007, when the vaccine became a must for girls in the seventh grade.

Numerous debates have been raised on the safety of this vaccine. While some consider it to be amazingly safe, others claim that the vaccine should not be administered. However, latest studies have proved that this vaccine can be safe enough for use.

HPV is a very serious disease that thousands of women have to face each year. In order to stop spreading this disease, which is sexually transmitted, doctors and researchers worked together and created a vaccine which is now administered to young girls and women. Although the vaccine design was approved by the FDA and the vaccine is now legally used in the United States of America and in other states too, some doctors say that parents should wait until the long-term effects of the vaccine, called Gardasil, can be observed. These risks are not known yet, so those interested in protecting their daughters of HPV should think twice. 

The Chief Medical Editor from ABC News, doctor Timothy Johnson is not convinced of the benefits of this vaccine, so he recommends parents to make a lot of research before making this choice for their daughters. This advice is available for women who opt for Gardasil for themselves, too. In the video bellow you can hear his opinion.

Doctor Jennifer Ashton reports for CBS the concerns she has during a reportage in which several problems of Gardasil are emphasized. You can hear what she thinks about the vaccine and you can see her and other doctors talking about this vaccine in the next video.

If you too are on the point of deciding if you or your daughter will get the vaccine, get informed. Information is very important, so ask for it. Talk to your doctor and only take the final decision after you are sure what is the best in the given situation.

The concept of a malaria vaccine has sparked great interest for decades. Nevertheless, the challenge is proving to be a difficult one. Immune dysregulation by Plasmodium and the ability of the parasite to mutate critical epitopes in surface antigens have proved to be strong defense weapons. This has lead to reconsideration of polyvalent and whole parasite strategies and ways to enhance cellular immunity to malaria, that may be more likely to target conserved antigens and an expanded repertoire of antigens.

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Recently, there has been a breakthrough in finding malaria vaccine design. Researchers have found two key proteins at the centre of sexual reproduction which allow two sex cells to merge and form a zygote. The discovery suggests a new way of preventing the spread of malaria by inhibiting its reproduction in the belly of the mosquito.

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This development program resulted from an unusual interdisciplinary collaboration between two groups of biologists at UC San Diego, one from the Division of Biological Sciences and San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, which had been engineering algae to produce bio-products and biofuels, and from the Center for Tropical Medicine and Emerging Infectious Diseases in the School of Medicine.

Creating such a vaccine is not easy, since the process requires a system that can produce complex, three-dimensional proteins that resemble those made by the parasite. Therefore, the vaccine would elicit antibodies that disrupt malaria transmission.

Biologists looked to produce their proteins with the help of an edible green alga, Chalmydomonas reinhardtii, used in research laboratories as a genetic model organism, much like the fruit fly Drosophila and the bacterium E.Coli.

In 2010, the team of researchers led by Stephen Mayfield, professor of biology at US San Diego, published a study proving that many complex therapeutic proteins, such as monoclonal antibodies and growth hormones could be produced by this type of Alga.

Another researcher, James Gregory, continued Mayfield’s study and set out to determine if this alga, an organism that can produce complex proteins very cheaply, could produce malaria proteins that would inhibit infections from malaria. Researchers have showed that the proteins produced by the algae, when injected into laboratory mice, made antibodies that blocked malaria transmission from mosquitoes.

The scientist were extremely happy with the results and they filed a patent application on their new discovery. The next step is to test this vaccine design on humans. They want to see if these algae proteins work to protect humans from malaria and then determine if they can modify the proteins to elicit the same antibody response when the algae are eaten rather than injected. The scientific community is waiting for the first human tests. If everything goes according to plan, then there might be a cure for malaria in the future.

Dealing with a global public health crisis automatically implies having an international presence. This is not only advisable–it is mandatory. This not only applies to the development of new tools to prevent disease, but also to treatment.

This is the reason why the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has partnered with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These organizations have been diligently working together in the recent years. Their non-profit partnership has gone global and has become an important organization when it comes to this condition. IAVI has used exclusively donor funds to create an extraordinary network of research centers in sub-Saharan Africa. That network is dedicated to assessing novel AIDS vaccine candidates in clinical trials. The centers are also concerned with conducting supporting epidemiological studies on HIV. 

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These partnerships have made a difference. They have made meaningful contributions to AIDS/HIV research, especially when it comes to developing countries. Currently, IAVI and their partners have started to apply the same model, supporting the design of a new generation of AIDS vaccine candidates. For instance, IAVI and the Translational Health Sciences and Technology Institute (THSTI) — an autonomous institute of the Indian government’s Department of Biotechnology — launched an HIV Vaccine Design Programme near New Delhi.

The Programme is dedicated to the large-scale generation and preclinical evaluation of immunogens, which are the active ingredients of vaccines. By doing so, the Programme will focus on developing immunogens that are capable of eliciting antibodies that can prevent infection by a broad range of the circulating genetic variants of HIV. This challenge, called “the neutralizing antibody problem” by researchers, stood in the way of progress towards an AIDS vaccine for quite a while now. However, with recent discoveries and findings of antibodies that are capable to block a number of HIV variants, researchers now have clues on how to design potentially powerful new vaccine candidates.

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The HIV Vaccine Design Programme will make use of these clues in order to get a clear insight and try to develop new ways to generate large numbers of potential HIV immunogens and rapidly assess their potential for use in candidate vaccines. Much of this research will be conducted in a laboratory housed with THSTI, which is being built with the help and support of IAVI, THSTI, and DBT. Since these institutions have had a productive partnership over the last decade, the location of the Programme should come as no surprise. 

Moreover, IAVI has also collaborated with the research institutions of the Indian government when it came to the clinical evaluation of candidate AIDS vaccines. On the other hand, many Indian scientists have participated in an international consortium of HIV laboratories meant to advance HIV vaccine research, which has also been supported by IAVI.

The HIV Vaccine Design Programme comes as a breath of fresh air, as an opportunity to engage an emerging economy in the global quest to come up with a vaccine against this terrible virus. Also, such a collaboration puts brilliant minds to work, which can lead to the fostering of scientific and technical innovation, as it can generate ideas that might find the cure for other diseases, as well.

Obesity has become a worldwide epidemic and its rates are increasing at a fast pace. The worst part is that more and more children and adolescents are starting to suffer from this condition. Childhood and teen obesity are on the rise. This condition does not seem to be stopped by dieting, exercise, surgery and weight loss products. What could work to combat it, though? A vaccine.

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Researchers from Braasch Biotech LLC have recently come up with a weight loss vaccine design that could solve many people’s weight problems. Braasch Biotech LLC is a private company specializing in the development of bio-pharmaceutical vaccine products for both human and veterinary healthcare markets. The results of their study were published on July 9, 2012, in the Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, and it is called Effects of Novel Vaccines on Weight Loss in Diet-Induced-Obese Mice.

As the name suggests it, the study is based on mice. The mice were administered two different vaccines, namely JH17 and JH18. Prior to the experiment, the mice were fed a high fat diet in order to become overweight. Four days after being vaccinated, the mice that received either version of the vaccine had lost 10% of their body weight, as compared to the control group.

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Three weeks later, they were administered a booster vaccine, which led to their weight loss remaining constant. How to these vaccines work, though? The mice lost weight because the vaccines decreased the amount of somatostatin hormones. However, the normal levels of HGH (human growth hormone), IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) and insulin were not affected.

Somatostatin is in charge with limiting the amount of growth factor released in the body by the pituitary gland. Since the vaccines themselves are modified to release antibodies that reduce the level of somatostatin in the body, they allow growth factor levels to increase. The vaccines not only managed to reduced the mice’s body weight, but also to maintain normal IGF1 and insulin levels.

Moreover, the obese mice which got either one of the vaccines stopped gaining weight, even though they were on the same high fat diet. There is an ongoing debate of whether obesity should be considered a disease and therefore treated by means of vaccination. Nevertheless, the results of the study showed that immunization with a somatostatin vaccine could reduce weight gain and increase weight loss, which means that we might be facing the first anti-obesity vaccine in the world.

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Even though further studies are required in order to discover the long term effects and implications of these vaccines, one thing is clear: treatment of obesity in humans with vaccination could provide physicians with a drug and surgical free remedy against the worldwide weight epidemic.

In the last years, new vaccine designs were necessary in order to control some diseases. Thanks to research in the medical area, there are now people working on a vaccine design based on defective genomes. This new design would combine features of inactivated vaccines with those of attenuated vaccines. A very important aspect of the research is that some diseases not only make people or animals sick, but also provoke severe economic losses. Taking as a research object the foot-and-mouth disease, also known as FMD, which affects the livestock and is extremely contagious, people working in the medical field started working on such a new vaccine. Although the illness has in present an effective vaccine, new discoveries were made because the virus was not completely activated and its escape was used as a premise in the research which hopefully will lead to a new type of design and to the production of new vaccines. Researchers in charge of this specific project proved that serial passages of the virus that suffered multiplication in the cell culture lead to the creation of virus populations which had defective genomes. These are infectious, too.

In the study made to create a new design of vaccine, the virus was named FMDV C-S8c1. The new design was named C-S8p260. Mice were used to establish a proof pf principle, on which S8p260 was tested, but it came as a natural thing to also test S8p260 on swine, because pigs are those that usually develop this disease. Thanks to the design that was tested, the mice were completely protected against FMDV C-S8c1. A single dose of vaccine was used on them and it worked perfectly, proving that at least on them, it is completely functional.

The pigs which were included in the research were immunized with different doses of C-S8p260 and they were challenged with the same virus, known in the research as FMDV C-S8c1. More or less surprisingly, the pigs reacted in the best manner and they neutralized the antibodies. According to the result, they had a high protection against the virus and they did not developed any type of symptoms of the disease. As a conclusion, the new vaccine design against the FMD virus was a success. Thanks to the newly-developed vaccine, the swine population can stay illness free. The disease was not detectable in pigs and this challenges researchers to try create more vaccines of this type.

Anthrax is a serious disease that affects both humans and animals and can be lethal most of the times. The disease is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which is able to form dormant endospores that can survive in harsh conditions for prolonged periods of times, even centuries. These spores are present on all continents, including Antarctica. If a person were to inhale them or come in contact with them throughout skin lesions or a host, these spores could become reactivated and multiply at a rapid pace. The worst part is that anthrax can be produced in vitro and then used as a biological weapon. Its most common symptoms include respiratory, gastrointestinal, and cutaneous infection and are each characterized by their own symptoms.

Luckily, French scientist Louis Pasteur came up with a vaccine design against anthrax as early as 1881. More than a century later, the number of vaccines that are known to be effective against this disease are multiple and are recommended as a prevention measure. Among the vaccines in current use, the Georgian/Russian vaccine is one of the best ones. This vaccine is a live-attenuated vaccine that is based on spores from the Stern strain of Bacillus anthracis. However, it has serious side effects, which is why only healthy adults can get vaccinated. There is also the USA vaccine called AVA which is manufactured by Emergent BioSolutions under the brand name BioThrax. This vaccine is adsorbed onto aluminum hydroxide and is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. It should be administered in 5-dose series in addition to annual boosters that have the purpose of strengthening and maintaining a strong immune system.

As Bacillus anthracis can be used as a lethal biological weapon, numerous researchers and scientists have expressed interest in developing a new vaccine design against anthrax. Since the disease has 3 main components (spore, bacillus, and toxin), the new vaccine should offer protection against all of them in order to be effective. This means that the ideal vaccine against anthrax should offer simultaneous protection against spores, bacilli, and toxins alike. Achieving this goal is quite hard, but scientists are trying and hopefully they will come up with a powerful vaccine design that will pass through and will protect the human kind against the awful disease called anthrax. It is a matter of time until a brilliant mind such as Louis Pasteur will find it, so we will have to wait and see.

The advance in technology has led to numerous breakthroughs and revolutionary discoveries in the recent years. Modern medical equipment allows scientists to dedicate an awful amount of time to research and come up with new vaccines and medicines that would significantly improve the future of humanity. This is how the laboratory of Dr. Elizabeth Leadbetter at the Trudeau Institute came up with a new vaccine design class. The research found new properties of a potential vaccine adjuvant that could be extremely useful for enhancing protection against various different infections that jeopardize people’s lives nowadays. The new data was published in the January 2012 issue of the medical journal Nature Immunology. Here are some of the findings.

Vaccines have the purpose of training out bodies to recognize harmful microbes (like viruses, parasites and bacteria). Typically, they contain disabled microbes or components of microbes that are called antigens. Getting vaccinated tricks our body by making it think that we have been infected by the harmful microbe, therefore triggering an immune response. The vaccine should produce a long-lived memory immune response to the microbe’s antigens, which allows the body to respond in a quicker and more effective way if it becomes infected with the harmful microbe. Most vaccines developed until present day contain adjuvants. Adjuvants are substances that are added to the vaccine in order to improve immune response to the antigens. They also increase the strength of the immune response by allowing for smaller amounts of antigens to be used when vaccines are being produced. Immune response to antigens leads to the release of antibodies. Antibodies are a secreted product of B cells and attach themselves to antigens.

Consequently, they help our bodies eliminate the aforementioned harmful microbes. Some T cells have the potential of helping B cells make antibodies. Previously, Dr. Leadbetter had discovered that natural killer T (NKT) cells, which are a special population of T cells, could help B cells create antibodies. She believed that directing NKT cells to help B cells could lead to a new way of inducing antibodies against harmful microbes. Moreover, numerous harmful microbes produce liquid lipids, so this technique could successfully complement existing vaccine design technologies. This means that lipids may become an important class of adjuvants, since they have intrinsic properties and the capacity of activating NKT cells. Furthermore, a single lipid adjuvant could be used more than one time without losing its effect. This discovery will surely lead to the development of the vaccine design technology.