(16 Jul 2020) LEAD IN:
An array of new technologies are being used to try to produce a vaccine which can protect the world from COVID-19, but scientists say that could be months away at the very least.
Here’s a look at some of the vaccines in development.
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Vaccines train our bodies to recognize and fend off germs before they make us sick.
Traditionally, vaccines are made using viruses that have been killed or weakened, like vaccines against the flu or measles.
Some companies are creating COVID19 vaccines made with killed coronavirus.
But growing viruses is labor intensive and sometimes risky.
So other companies are using newer and faster technologies to create different types of vaccines against COVID-19.
The target, a spiky protein that covers the new coronavirus.
That protein lets the virus invade human cells.
If the body’s immune system recognizes the spike and blocks it, people won’t get infected.
One way is to copy a section of the virus’s genetic code that instructs cells to make the spike protein.
Stick that messenger RNA into a vaccine.
The person’s own cells will make the harmless protein, then the immune system will spot the foreign proteins and make antibodies to attack them.
Another method is called a DNA vaccine.
Genetic code for the spike protein is put into what’s called a plasmid, a circular piece of synthetic DNA and used as a vaccine.
Still, another type of vaccine uses a virus that’s weakened in the lab and then engineered to carry genes for the spike protein into the body.
Some are made with a version of a common cold virus called an adenoviruses, including one strain that normally infects chimpanzees.
All of these approaches prime the immune system to attack again if the real coronavirus ever comes along.
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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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