december 6th 2019

Recent developments in the science community have allowed recombinant technologies to be used to create new vaccines. In the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of medications produced to prevent infections and diseases. Before any product is released, it must be tested to ensure the quality, safety and efficiency of the product when used on humans. Few countries are trying to legalize the use of genetically modified organisms in their vaccines. The use of GMOs in vaccines is to enhance the immune response against the infectious agent or tumor cells. The GMO used in chosen on a case by case basis to ensure that appropriate evaluations can be determined after. GMO regulation is very complex and requires a lot of trials. The hope is that these GMO vaccines can be used to treat HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other emerging diseases in the future. 

            Some successful vaccines have been released in Europe, including the Dengvaxia vaccine. Dengvaxia, is a GMO vaccine, used to prevent the dengue disease, a mosquito borne viral disease. This virus causes 20,000- 25,000 deaths each year, mainly children, and can infect a person more than once in their lifetime. In the past multiple vaccines were usually needed to prevent infections. The dengvaxia vaccine was developed by using a strand of the yellow fever vaccine as a vector, which was then genetically modified to express different genes.