CitizenVectron Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-scientists-figure-out-how-to-preserve-vaccines-without-refrigeration-a-potential-public-health-game-changer Big news: Quote Chemical engineers at McMaster University dried live viral vaccines with a sugar solution that can be stored at 40 C for months with no ill effects Quote A team of Canadian scientists has developed what could be a simple and inexpensive method to preserve vaccines without refrigeration — a potential public-health game changer in parts of the world where epidemics are raging and resources are limited. A chemical engineering team at McMaster University, spearheaded by recent PhD graduate Vince Leung and supervised by professor Carlos Filipe, combined herpes and influenza A vaccines — chosen because they’re among the most fragile and sensitive to heat — with a sugar solution and dried the mixture into a thin film. They stored this at a desert-like 40 degrees Celsius for weeks before reconstituting it in saline solution and testing it in mice. The vaccines were as safe and as effective as they would have been “fresh out of the fridge,” Filipe said. The flu vaccine was still good after three months, and the herpes after two. How it's done, and where the inspiration came from: Quote She looked at the dissolvable Listerine breath strips and had a flash of insight: The strips are thin sheets of film made of a sugar called pullulan. Scientists already knew sugars can help protect the integrity of some fragile biological molecules, such as enzymes. What if they swapped the Listerine ingredients for something else — like a protein or virus from a vaccine? Could sugars protect those too? Pretty cool stuff. This could be a game-changer for distributing vaccines around the world, and storing them in case of emergencies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Littleronin Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 Great, now anti-vaxxers will argue that the vaccines gave their child ADHD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentbob Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 39 minutes ago, Littleronin said: Great, now anti-vaxxers will argue that the vaccines gave their child ADHD. . . . but fresh breathe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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