Use of the drugs in children under the age of two was associated with lower antibody levels after the jabs—perhaps, researchers suggest, due to microbiome alterations.
As researchers test existing vaccines for nonspecific protection against COVID-19, immunologists are working to understand how some inoculations protect against pathogens they weren’t designed to fend off.
Jean Macnamara, a pioneer in the treatment of polio patients and the subject of this issue’s Foundations, comes to life in the form of a Google Doodle to celebrate what would have been her 121st birthday.
Children with acute flaccid myelitis are more likely to have antibodies against the viral family in their spinal fluid than are children without the illness.
Julius Youngner collaborated with Jonas Salk on the polio vaccine, and later identified interferon gamma and contributed to an equine influenza vaccine.
Using epidemiological and laboratory data, scientists have mapped out a sequence of mutations through which the attenuated oral polio vaccine reverts to a virulent virus.
Researchers are developing polio vaccines based on the viral capsid alone. When produced in recombinant systems, these could eliminate the need to propagate live poliovirus for vaccine production.
As the world inches closer to polio eradication, laboratories studying the virus will have to bolster biosafety standards. Eventually, most will need to stop working with the pathogen entirely.
The eradication of smallpox set the standard for the global elimination of a devastating infectious disease. Will the ongoing polio and guinea worm campaigns be as successful?
