I want to know where the viruses or pathogens are collected from that make the vaccines.From some sick person?!
Question: I want to know where the viruses or pathogens are collected from that make the vaccines.From some sick person.?
Answers:
The egg technique is an older one, though still commonly used for 'attenuated' vaccines like the flu.
The viruses originally came from people, yes, though at this point, pretty much every virus has been grown and cultured - you can order a pure sample from many biolab suppliers.
The more modern way to do it is to infect human cells with it. We now have lines of human cells that can live indefinitely in a petri dish. We infect the cells with the virus, and then harvest the virus as it sheds from them. You then sell the virus, or process it for the parts you need, or weaken it to make an old-style vaccine.
Attenuated vaccines are becoming less and less common. Most new vaccines are recombinant proteins. Basically, we just grow the part of the virus that your immune system needs to recognize and attack. Eventually, we'll have DNA vaccines, which have amazing potential. At that point we won't even really need the virus anymore, just its DNA.
Bacteria are easy, you can grow them without having them infect cells, just a culture in a dish of raw bacteria. There are some exceptions, like TB which grows best when it's inside a living human cell.Health Question & Answer
The viruses originally came from people, yes, though at this point, pretty much every virus has been grown and cultured - you can order a pure sample from many biolab suppliers.
The more modern way to do it is to infect human cells with it. We now have lines of human cells that can live indefinitely in a petri dish. We infect the cells with the virus, and then harvest the virus as it sheds from them. You then sell the virus, or process it for the parts you need, or weaken it to make an old-style vaccine.
Attenuated vaccines are becoming less and less common. Most new vaccines are recombinant proteins. Basically, we just grow the part of the virus that your immune system needs to recognize and attack. Eventually, we'll have DNA vaccines, which have amazing potential. At that point we won't even really need the virus anymore, just its DNA.
Bacteria are easy, you can grow them without having them infect cells, just a culture in a dish of raw bacteria. There are some exceptions, like TB which grows best when it's inside a living human cell.Health Question & Answer
the flu virus is grown in eggs (which is why you can't have it if you are allergic to eggs), and then killed to put in the vaccine. Other viruses also are grown in eggs, and other methods..........the original vaccines (some of them anyhow) were taken from people who had been sick, once you were able to isolate them in a lab, you could reproduce them (similar to bacteria). i've heard some were grown in monkeys. Once you have the virus isolated, it's easy enough to grow it and reproduce it.Health Question & Answer