Posts tagged vaccine

Scientist Who Discovered Hepatitis C Has Now Discovered Possible Vaccine

The word “poetic” could not have been a more apt description for this story. Michael Houghton from the University of Alberta, who led a team of scientists to the discovery of Hepatitis C in 1989 announced earlier today that he has discovered the vaccine. With the diversity of hepatitis C strains, it was long thought to be impossible to develop a vaccine that could target all of them. Ten years of research and development has led to this discovery. 

As Houghton admits, there are still more tests to be run to check its efficacy and safety but so far the vaccine candidate is showing great promise.

The End-All-Be-All Flu Shot?

Every year epidemiologists try to predict what strains of the influenza virus are going to make its way around the world and create vaccines accordingly. The vaccines are designed to boost our immunity against those particular strains, which is sometimes hit or miss, depending on the accuracy of the original prediction. Sometimes, mutations happen, genetic shift or drift creates something that the vaccines are just not designed for.

North Texas researchers have tried to look upstream for a new solution, and may have found the answer in REDD-1, a protein that is found in the regulation of cell defence.

It sounds impressive but we will have to wait and see if it lives up to the expectations in clinical trials.