Genomic vaccines offer advantages over standard vaccines by using DNA or RNA instead of proteins or pathogens. Genomic vaccines deliver genes that encode proteins to cells, allowing the cells to produce the desired proteins and inducing an immune response. This approach could allow faster vaccine development for diseases like Zika or Ebola. It may also enable vaccines for multiple pathogens at once and easy updating as pathogens mutate. Clinical trials are studying genomic vaccines for diseases like influenza, Ebola, hepatitis C, and cancers. The technology holds promise but further improvement is still needed before widespread use.

1. Genomic Vaccines Fight Disease in
Ways Not Possible Before
Vaccines composed of DNA or RNA, instead of protein
Presented by –
VISHAL PANDEY
17412GPB017
M.Sc. GPB , Sem-1

2. Article Source: Scientific American
Author - Geoffrey Ling on June 26, 2017

3. Introduction
consist of killed or
weakened
pathogens or
proteins
Standard vaccines
consists of genes.Genomic vaccines

4. delivering a dead or
weakened pathogen
immune system
recognizes that certain
bits of protein, called
antigens as foreign
prepares to pounce the
next time it encounters
them
DNA or RNA that encodes
desired proteins
On injection, the genes enter
cells, which then churn out
the selected proteins
Standard vaccines Genomic vaccines

5. • "Genomic vaccines promise to offer many
advantages, including fast manufacture when a
virus, such as Zika or Ebola, suddenly becomes more
virulent or widespread”
-said Geoffrey Ling, retired U.S. Army colonel, is a professor of
neurology at the Uniformed Services University of Health
Science and at Johns Hopkins University
• "Genetic immunization is going to be a revolution in
vaccines and now we've taken it to another level -
genomic vaccination. We should be able to apply
this technology to any pathogen,"
- said Dr. Stephen Johnston, professor of internal medicine and
biochemistry, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.

6. What are the Benefits ?
• Compared with manufacturing proteins in cell
cultures or eggs, producing the genetic material
should be simpler and less expensive.
• A single vaccine can include the coding sequences
for multiple proteins
• It can be changed readily if a pathogen mutates or
properties need to be added

7. In the future, investigators could sequence the
genomes of the circulating strains and produce a
better-matched vaccine in weeks
Public health experts revise the flu vaccine annually,
but sometimes the vaccine they choose does not
match the viral strains that circulate when flu season
come

8. Genomics also enables a new twist on a
vaccination - Passive immune transfer
“Antibodies are delivered instead of antigens”
Scientists can now identify people who are resistant
to a pathogen, isolate the antibodies that provide
that protection and design a gene sequence that will
induce a person’s cells to produce those antibodies.

9. With such goals in mind, the U.S. government, academic
labs and companies large and small are pursuing the
technology. A range of clinical trials to test safety and
immunogenicity are under way, including for avian
influenza, Ebola, hepatitis C, HIV, and breast, lung,
prostate, pancreatic and other cancers.
National Institutes of Health has begun a multisite
clinical trial to see if a DNA vaccine can protect against
Zika.

10. Researchers are working to improve the
technology—for example, by finding more efficient
ways to get the genes into cells and by improving the
stability of the vaccines in heat.
Oral delivery, which would be valuable where
medical personnel are scarce, is not likely to be
feasible anytime soon, but nasal administration is
being studied as an alternative and is under study

11. Johnston and colleagues have completed research in
which mice were protected from mycoplasma infection - a
tuberculosis-like disease - after getting a "genomic
vaccine.". The researchers made the vaccine by cutting up
the genome of mycoplasma into small bits and shooting
all the genomic bits into the skin cells of the mice. Each bit
of mycoplasma DNA made a mycoplasma protein, which
produced an immune response in each mouse.
"This genomic vaccine fools the immune system into
thinking it has been infected by the real pathogen.
Protection is produced without risk of infection, and it may
be more effective than conventional vaccines," said
Johnston.

12. Conclusion
The high-speed technology could prove to be invaluable
in confronting the growing number of emerging infectious
diseases. Animal, and possibly human, applications may
be available in a few years.

13. Thank you