Is research on the immune system progresses, it is becoming possible to tailor the immune response to specific antigens, and to redirect it when it goes awry. A medical education seminar on new ideas in vaccines, at the US National Institutes of Health, gave attenders a peek into the future. Engineering small peptides into proteins is cumbersome. An easier method is to couple the peptides to the carbohydrate on the immunoglobulin. With both techniques the antigens are released in vivo by lysosome enzymes.
Vaccinated cells mimic a natural infection with the virus.
The muscle cells producing the vaccine antigens are not killed, but the cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes produced by the vaccination do kill epithelial cells infected by the virus. In several animal influenza greatly reduces mortality and morbidity in animals subsequently challenged with live ruins from a variety of different strains.