Vaccine Development

You are a microbiologist assigned a research project to design vaccine for a helminth or fungal infection. It cannot be the same pathogen you used for the disinfectant or antibiotic project and it cannot be a pathogen found on your 80 pathogen list from lecture study guide for Exam#5 (Final). Also, you cannot use the pathogen selected for the antibiotic and disinfectant project. You cannot use any experimental vaccines; this is a completely new project! Your project must include the following: A General Overview of the Pathogen (1 pg) including, name of target organism/pathogen (give genus species name) and why you chose it (give overall statistics of infection rates, mortality, geographic location found, who is most likely to get infected), how to prevent infection, overall general signs and symptoms, body systems involved, special features, why is it important to cure this disease and get rid of this pathogen? A summary of the immune response when a pathogen infects (1 pg) –what does your immune system do when a pathogen starts an infection inside you? What specific cells and molecules are involved? Explain detection, recognition, defenses and attack of the pathogen by your immune system. A General Overview of how Vaccines work (1 pg) including immune response to a vaccine, the major immune cells and molecules involved, the purpose of vaccines, effectiveness for long term immunity and the advantage of a vaccine over natural exposure to a pathogen. See pgs 493-500 on vaccines, Chap 18. For the New Vaccine Research (2 pg), you must provide the following information with justification and rationale: Name of vaccine, against what molecular part of the pathogen will you design your vaccine against, will it be a live attenuated, whole cell, killed, acellular, toxoid vaccine, how will it work (explain the molecular mechanism of action), how will it be administered (is it injected or inhaled), how many doses, at what age will the vaccine be administered, how effective the vaccine is (short term or long term immunity, booster needed?), how will you make the public aware of this new vaccine, how will you get it to the patients that need it, what is the cost, all the while keeping in mind that it must have little or no side effects to the patient. What specific type of side effects did you expect to see from your new vaccine? List and explain. Defending the Effectiveness of Vaccines- You are going into the health profession. How do you defend government mandated vaccinations?  What do you tell your patients who argue that we no longer need to vaccinate our children against certain childhood diseases, like polio, because they no longer “exists” in the US?  What fact based science do you use to convince your patient that vaccines provide more benefits than not vaccinating?  What if you have a patient who doesn’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it is safe and available for mass distribution?  How do you convince this patient?