question: Traditionally, what preventative measure used weakened or inactive forms of microorganisms or viruses to stimulate the immune system?
distractor3: pathogen
distractor1: infection
distractor2: assimilation
correct_answer: vaccine
support: Production of Vaccines, Antibiotics, and Hormones Traditional vaccination strategies use weakened or inactive forms of microorganisms or viruses to stimulate the immune system. Modern techniques use specific genes of microorganisms cloned into vectors and mass-produced in bacteria to make large quantities of specific substances to stimulate the immune system. The substance is then used as a vaccine. In some cases, such as the H1N1 flu vaccine, genes cloned from the virus have been used to combat the constantly changing strains of this virus. Antibiotics kill bacteria and are naturally produced by microorganisms such as fungi; penicillin is perhaps the most wellknown example. Antibiotics are produced on a large scale by cultivating and manipulating fungal cells. The fungal cells have typically been genetically modified to improve the yields of the antibiotic compound. Recombinant DNA technology was used to produce large-scale quantities of the human hormone insulin in E. coli as early as 1978. Previously, it was only possible to treat diabetes with pig insulin, which caused allergic reactions in many humans because of differences in the insulin molecule. In addition, human growth hormone (HGH) is used to treat growth disorders.