Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated that their compound can eliminate the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis. Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed
“an inverse vaccine”
Oh good, at least they didn’t choose a name that’s gonna cause confusion.
TIL you can wait until you have the disease to take the vaccine. So if my kid gets polio, I’ll give them the vaccine then, but I don’t want to risk anything bad happening so I’ll wait. I’m glad I did my research.
That naming does makes sense, given what the treatment does, although I agree they really need to work on their marketing and come up with a term that won’t cause confusion or get the anti-vax folk excitable.
From the article:
“A typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked. The new “inverse vaccine” does just the opposite: it removes the immune system’s memory of one molecule. While such immune memory erasure would be unwanted for infectious diseases, it can stop autoimmune reactions like those seen in multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or Crohn’s disease, in which the immune system attacks a person’s healthy tissues.”
“Inverse vaccine” sounds like instead of preventing a disease through a weakened or dead version of the thing you’re preventing, they inject you with a stronger version of the thing you already have to kick it’s ass.
