The making of dengue virus: the 3′ UTR
In the first blog of our dengue series, we described dengue’s 5′ untranslated region (UTR) – a relative short sequence (around 100 nucleotides) that includes two elements essential for genome replication: (i) the promoter for RNA synthesis, (known as stem-loop A), and...
How do you go about making a vaccine? – II Part
Preclinical testing comes at a relatively early stage in vaccine discovery, as the development of an immune response following antigen administration can only be tested in an organism. If adequate models are available, protection from (or attenuation of) viral...
Why bird flu doesn’t do well in humans
Influenza A viruses are a common concern among many animal species, including birds, horses, pigs, and humans and the effects can range from asymptomatic to severe respiratory injury leading to death. The low fidelity of the genome-replication machinery – together...
How do you go about making a vaccine? – I Part
How do you go about making a vaccine? We received this very pertinent question from a sci-fi author a few weeks ago, and thought it was worth a new short blog series! This month we cover the early R&D stages of vaccine discovery, while in the next blog, we’ll talk...Page 13 of 32