"Crash Course on Immunity and Vaccination"
I am a Life science major. But I did not know much about vaccine until I happen to talk with a colleague who has worked on developing vaccines. The conversation fascinated me to learn more about vaccine development. This happened well before the arrival of covid 19. I was learning about vaccines form that time onwards. I realized that vaccination is not well represented in learning materials form online and spent much time in finding a learning website.
With the arrival of covid19, I decided to refresh my knowledge and create a course for the benefit of interested parties.
Historically, influenza and other communicable diseases spared nobody - the rich and the poor, young and old.
The fatalities, and lack of controllable measures other than personal hygiene necessitated vaccine development
Fast forward, we are able to bring newer vaccines that eradicated many diseases from the entire world due to the technical advances in molecular biology, understanding of diseases.
The course entails the concepts of
1. Active immunity, Passive immunity, how Immune system is activated, immune cells, maternal to child transfer of immunity, herd immunity
2. Vaccines- Development, landmark events, types and classification
3.The vaccine manufacturing- process, approval, testing, how manufacturing decisions are made, and
4. How FDA works with the manufactures to bring vaccines faster to market with rigorous safety evaluation before approval
Course structure
The course has two sections and an assignment. The course includes downloadable contents.
The first section takes us through the definition of vaccination, purpose, history, overview of immunity, herd immunity, vaccine safety measures and vaccine components. Vaccination in the earlier days were predominated by antitoxin therapy due to its higher success rate. We will walk through few key history events in vaccination and how Louis Pasteur revolutionized vaccine science.
The second section describes the classification of vaccines, the driving forces that led to development of vaccines and the increasing attention on nucleic acid vaccines. The DNA and RNA vaccine lectures helps in good understanding of nucleic acid vaccines. The lecture on vaccine safety will develop an understanding the rigorous process followed to ensure vaccine safety.
I hope you will enroll in the course now.
Biju Joseph Ph.D.
