June 10, 2014
Alexi and I delved into how vaccines work by creating protective antibodies. We studied Gardasil, a vaccine currently given to humans to protect against Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
Alexi learned that vaccines cause your body to create antibodies that recognize pathogens (the bad guys, like HPV). These antibodies are spewed out by the millions and released into the blood so they can 'patrol' your body. They find and tag 'bad guys' for destruction. Since very human is unique, everybody responds to vaccines differently and thus creates different amounts of these protective antibodies. In order to test if a vaccine worked properly in a human being, we can sample their blood a few weeks after they receive a vaccination to see if they have antibodies!
Alexi and I went into the lab to model this experiment. In our case, 12 mice had been vaccinated and we tested their blood for antibodies using a fancy technique called ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay). We found that, indeed, some mice made more antibodies than others.
