Vaccination-Companion in boosting our fight against invaders

Description

                                                 "Vaccination-Companion in boosting our fight against invaders"

Though being a Life science major and PhD in Life sciences, I  did not know science of vaccines until my interaction with a colleague who researched on vaccine development. I  made it a habit to understand vaccine development, and its economic impact on society and cost considerations of the manufacturer. I realized that learning materials on vaccination is not well represented in Udemy and other online learning platforms.

With the arrival of covid19, I decided to refresh my knowledge and create a course  for the benefit of interested parties.

• Historically, influenza and other communicable diseases spared nobody - the rich and the poor, young and old

  
  

• The fatalities, and lack of controllable measures other than personal hygiene necessitated vaccine development

• The pandemics shaped faster evolution and accelerated development of vaccines

Fast forward, we are able to bring newer vaccines that eradicated many diseases from the entire world due to the technical advances in  molecular biology and greater understanding of diseases.

The course  teaches the concepts

1.  Immunity

                                  Active and passive immunity, maternal to child transfer of immunity, herd immunity;

                                   immune cells;  how our immune system is activated;

2. Vaccines

                                   Development, landmark events, types and classification;

3.The vaccine manufacturing

                                     Process, approval, testing, how manufacturing decisions are made;

4.  Role of FDA to bring vaccines faster to market

Course structure

The course has two sections and an assignment. The course includes downloadable contents.

The first section takes us through the definition of vaccination, purpose, history, overview of immunity, herd immunity, vaccine safety measures and vaccine components. Vaccination in the earlier days were predominated by antitoxin therapy due to its higher success rate. We will walk through few key history events in vaccination and how Louis Pasteur revolutionized vaccine science.

The second section describes the classification of vaccines, the driving forces that led to development of vaccines and the increasing attention on nucleic acid vaccines. The DNA and RNA vaccine lectures helps in good understanding of nucleic acid vaccines. The lecture on vaccine safety will develop an understanding the rigorous process followed to ensure vaccine safety.

I urge you to enroll in the course and learn how immunity works in our favor against diseases.

Biju Joseph Ph.D.

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