New Stanford study points to vaccine that protects against multiple infections

"A new Stanford study published Thursday marks a big step forward in the creation of a new kind of vaccine that offers protection against a range of infections at once. Traditionally, vaccines protect against one particular pathogen, but in this study, Stanford Medicine researchers created a vaccine that successfully offered immunity from respiratory viruses, bacteria, and even allergens in mice. The study is published in the scientific journal Science, and the researchers behind the study hope to raise funding for clinical human trials."

"Dr. Bali Narendran, senior author of the study, said that this study represents a departure from the way vaccines have been developed for more than 200 years. We have the flu shot that hopefully will protect us against flu, we have the COVID shot to protect us against COVID, he said. We don't go to a pharmacist and say, Doctor, could I have the flu shot so that I can be protected against COVID?' So there's a high degree of specificity."

"He explained that we have two types of immunity against pathogens: innate and adaptive. Innate immunity kicks in immediately after a new infection and lasts for only a few days. Adaptive immunity, on the other hand, produces specialized antibodies tailored to the pathogen, offering protection for years. Because of this long-lasting protection, scientists have traditionally chosen adaptive immunity as the primary engine for immunization; they have created vaccines that trigger our immune systems to identify pathogens and produce tailor-made antibodies to fight them."

Stanford Medicine researchers engineered a vaccine that activates innate immunity and produced broad protection in mice against respiratory viruses, bacteria, and allergens. The approach emphasizes innate immune mechanisms that act immediately after infection rather than adaptive antibody responses that are pathogen-specific and long-lived. Innate immunity is evolutionarily older and shared across many species, offering a potential route to cross-protection. The vaccine achieved successful immunity in preclinical mouse models and the team aims to raise funding for clinical human trials to evaluate safety and efficacy in people. The shift could enable multi-target vaccines rather than one-pathogen-specific immunizations.

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