Step 1: Designing and Administering Vaccines

March 23, 2014
Our first meeting was a success!

1) List 4 types of vaccines:
-live attenuated (pathogen is alive, but weakened)
-inactivated (pathogen is dead)
-subunit (just a piece of the pathogen + an 'adjuvant' like alum)
-toxoid (the toxin produced by the pathogen, chemically inactivated)

2) Model them with donuts:
-scraped off the frosting (measles, mumps, chickenpox)
-smashed (polio, Hep A, rabies)
-sprinkles only + alum adjuvant (Hep B, pertussis, HPV)
-cream filling 'toxin' (diphtheria, tetanus)

3) We examined the kitchen-shelf version of alum (used for canning vegetables) and went over how it stimulates the immune system and is used in subunit vaccines.

4) Wet lab:  Alexi made her very own REAL vaccine!
-protein from the inside of the flu virus + alum + saline

5) Centrifuge vaccines to demonstrate that protein is fully adsorbed (stuck to) to alum

6) Inject real research subjects: nine 'black 6' mice
-injected intramuscularly, just like how most vaccines are given to humans

Preparing for Step 1: Designing and Administering Vaccines

We are meeting this weekend for our first experiment!  Lexi will meet me at my research facility within National Jewish Health this Sunday, March 23rd.

As researchers, we must wear long pants and closed-toe shoes!  We will try our best to collect ample photo evidence of our experiment.  We will be modeling four main types of vaccines, creating a REAL vaccine, and administering it to research subjects (mice) so that we can examine how the immune system responds to our vaccine.

Experimental Outline (coming soon!)

Hello, Robot!!

Vaccine project outline for Lexi Graves (2/26/2014)

Hi again,

Here is a rough draft of an outline for our spring project.

Project: Explore vaccines (what they are made of and how they work).  We will make a vaccine, immunize mice, examine the immune response to this vaccine, and explore how this immune response leads to lasting immunity against a real disease (pathogen).

Face-to-face meetings:
**Danielle (and Lexi), please give me a few dates/times that will work for these monthly get-togethers.  My schedule is relatively flexible and open, so I found it almost overwhelming to email you with my list of available days :)  You can start with just March and/or April if you don't want to schedule out all four quite yet.

March: "4 Main Types of Vaccines."  Build the four types of vaccines with props to understand them in a hands-on manner.  Also create a REAL 'subunit' vaccine in lab - this is the type I work with.  I am going to try to get authorization for you to come with me into the animal facility to actually vaccinate mice for our experiment.  Location: either ELA or National Jewish Health (if mouse vaccinations are okayed).

April:  "Innate Immune Response to Vaccines."  We will do a mouse dissection lab to get familiar with mammalian anatomy and immune organs (where vaccines do their work!).  We will look at the early immune response to our vaccine.  Location: National Jewish Health (preferred) or ELA.

May:  "Adaptive Immune Response to Vaccines."  We will look at the later events of the immune response to our vaccine (antibodies that protect you!).  Location: TBD.

June (or earlier since ELA ends June 10th):  "How Effective are Vaccines at Protecting Us?"  We will explore how protective different vaccines are.  Let's focus on your interests in STDs and look at some examples of vaccines for those diseases.  Location: TBD.


I think the face-to-face meetings will determine what we do for weekly communications, so I can't really plan those yet.

Let me know if you have questions!
Laura

Laura Noges
PhD candidate, Integrated Department of Immunology
National Jewish Health, Kappler/Marrack Lab
lab 303-398-1465
laura.noges@ucdenver.edu

Intro to Vaccines #2 (2/23/2014)

Hi Lexi,

We are on our way to a project on vaccines!  Did the first videos make sense?  Here is another video I'd like you to watch:

"Antibiotics and Vaccines" ~12 minutes.
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/antibiotics-and-vaccines.html#lesson

We can Skype soon to talk about the videos and answer any questions you have.  Are you free to Skype on Thursday evening (after 5:30pm)?  No worries if not.

Reading is a little bit less hands-on, so please just take a look at this webpage to get a feeling for the main types of vaccines.  Don't worry too much if it's hard to understand and you want to just skim the text.  Either way, please only focus on the first four types: Live attenuated, inactivated, subunit, and toxoid.
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/vaccines/understanding/pages/typesvaccines.aspx

I am still creating an outline for our spring project, but I still need to create a list of possible dates and then send the whole thing to you and your mom so we can begin to pencil things in!  I plan to send this to you tomorrow.

Cheers,
Laura

Intro to Vaccines (2/18/2014)

Hello Lexi (and Danielle),

I found two short videos on vaccines that will serve as a good introduction to our subject this spring!

Cheers,
Laura

Intro to Vaccines (2min):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SduMbjW2V9A

Science Behind the News (4min): INFLUENZA & FLU VACCINES
http://science360.gov/obj/video/0e61d589-8472-45ea-8596-3b4f5670425f/science-behind-news-influenza-flu-vaccines