"Stanford Medicine researchers claim they've invented a "universal vaccine formula" that protects mice against a wide range of allergens, bacteria, and respiratory viruses. And instead of being administered by injection, the potential cure-all can be taken as a simple nasal spray. If the formula, detailed in a recent study published in Science, could be applied to humans, it would be game-changer for people vulnerable to seasonal respiratory infections, the authors say. No more repeated trips to the doctor to get the jab; just a few whiffs of the stuff, and you'd be immune to all kinds of lung ailments for months at a time."
"Traditionally, vaccines work by mimicking a specific pathogen so that your body can learn to fight a weakened form of the disease. But the specificity can be the vaccine's undoing: if the disease mutates, or if a new bug emerges, the vaccine won't be effective, which is why we get updated flu shots every year. But the Stanford team's vaccine is "unlike any vaccine used today," the institution claims. Instead of mimicking the pathogen, it mimics the signals used by immune cells to communicate with each other as they fight an infection. In particular, the approach focuses on what's known as the innate immune system, which acts like the body's paramedics, who are on the scene of an infection immediately."
A nasal-spray vaccine formula protected mice from multiple respiratory viruses, bacterial pneumonia, and allergens by activating innate immune signaling. The approach mimics the communication signals between immune cells rather than mimicking specific pathogens, producing broad, non-pathogen-specific protection that lasted for months in the animal model. The strategy targets immediate innate defenses in the respiratory tract while still allowing adaptive responses to develop. Nasal delivery provided local lung immunity without injection. If translated to humans, the approach could reduce reliance on pathogen-specific seasonal vaccines and offer multi-target protection against common respiratory threats.
Read at Futurism
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