@mattotcha @drustevenson

Traditionally, vaccines contain either a dead or modified, live version of a virus. The body’s immune system recognizes a protein in the virus and mounts an immune response.

This response produces T-cells that attack the virus and stop it from spreading.

It also produces “memory” B-cells that train your immune system to protect you from future attacks.

The new vaccine also uses a live, modified version of a virus.

However, it does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins
— which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system.

Instead, this relies on small, silencing RNA molecules.

“A host — a person, a mouse, anyone infected— will produce small "interfering RNAs" as an immune response to viral infection.

These #RNAi then knock down the virus,” said Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author.

The reason viruses successfully cause disease is because they produce proteins that block a host’s RNAi response.

👉“If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus.

It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response,” Ding said.

“A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system.”

When the researchers tested this strategy with a mouse virus called Nodamura, they did it with mutant mice lacking T and B cells.

With one vaccine injection, they found the mice were protected from a lethal dose of the unmodified virus for at least 90 days.

Note that some studies show nine mouse days are roughly equivalent to one human year.

There are few vaccines suitable for use in babies younger than six months old.

However, even newborn mice produce small RNAi molecules, which is why the vaccine protected them as well.

UC Riverside has now been issued a US patent on this RNAi vaccine technology

https://scitechdaily.com/no-more-endless-boosters-scientists-develop-one-for-all-virus-vaccine/