Genetic Vaccines

“Biotechnology: fantastic new technology or certain disaster”

Genetic Vaccines

Introduction

The emerging field of biotechnology has led to new solutions for fighting diseases affecting people and animals. More specifically, the use of genetic vaccinations as a solution to growing occurrences of infectious diseases has been the latest breakthrough in the field of biotechnology. These vaccinations are produced using recombinant DNA technology to induce an immune response in the body and subsequently targeting the source of infection.

Developing vaccines using recombinant DNA technology should be preceded by extensive understanding of the agents causing the infection. In particular, thorough analysis of the antigens used for the sole purpose of inducing protection and other factors involved in the cause of the disease should be ensured. Furthermore, this biotechnological innovation to combat the infectious diseases requires physiological knowledge of the host's immune system to trigger an appropriate immunological response.

Discussion

Scientists have developed three types of vaccines using recombinant DNA technology to induce an immune response thereby preventing the infectious diseases. These include:

Live genetically modified organisms

Inactivated or killed vaccines

Genetic vaccines

These vaccines can be used to treat humans or agricultural animals (Jackwood and Hickle et al., 2008). However, this paper will only focus on the genetic or DNA vaccines serving both humans and agricultural animals. The concept of vaccination was first introduced back in 1798 by an English physician Edward Jenner who immunized the people against smallpox by using cowpox virus. This was later used as the basis of the smallpox vaccination program (Jackwood and Hickle et al., 2008).

Genetic vaccines provide long-term protection as compared to other vaccines since they result in inducing genetic material entering the cells and producing new proteins. These proteins maintain their natural form as opposed to the case when microorganisms are inactivated. This process leads to the activation of B cells in the host, and an antibody response is triggered recognizing the naturally existing microorganisms. This is called the humoral immune response. In addition, these vaccines trigger the cellular immune response, by activating the T cells in the host. These cells keep track of the processes going on inside the cells of the body by means of MHC or major histocompatibility complex. This detects the infected cells which can then be killed (NBAD, 2003)

Genetic vaccines are produced using recombinant DNA technology. This requires the understanding of the basics of molecular biology. All living things possess a genome that is consolidated by a number of genes defining the overall features of the organism. The genetic makeup of all organisms consists of nucleic acids including DNA and RNA. DNA consists of bases such as cytosine, adenine, thymine and guanine whereas, in RNA, thymine is replaced by uracil. These bases are ordered uniquely to form a sequence of a gene and are responsible to carry and convey the genetic information of organisms. The recombinant DNA technology modifies or deletes such genes responsible for causing diseases in an organism to create genetic vaccines (NBAD, 2003). This is possible because of the property of these nucleic acids to cross ...