How Vaccines Work

Overview

This course describes the underpinning science around vaccines and their development. It will look at the immunological underpinnings of how vaccines induce protection. It will also look at the epidemiological basis of how vaccines are rolled out. Finally it will explore how new vaccines are developed. On successful completion of the course, learners will be able to: 1. Understand how the immune response mediates vaccine protection 2. Explain how vaccines enter public health programs 3. Demonstrate your understanding of the challenges for the generation of a vaccine against disease This is an intermediate series of courses intended for both clinical and non-clinical scientists who want to update their skills for work in clinical, academic, and pharmaceutical/bioscience industries, and is developed and delivered by experts working on viruses and novel vaccines. To be successful in this series of courses, you should have basic knowledge in biology, genetics, microbiology or related fields.

Syllabus

Immunology

Basic overview of the immune system. This will cover: what is the immune system, what is immune memory, why that is important for vaccines, the key cells of adaptive immunity and then how these all contribute to vaccine induced protection.

Epidemiology of vaccines

This module will cover vaccines at a population level introducing some epidemiological principles. We will explore how infections spread (and how we model that). We will introduce the role of herd immunity. We will discuss what pathogen eradication means and what types of disease are eradicable and which ones are not?

Bench to bedside

Novel vaccines are no use if they are stuck on the shelves of research labs, they need to be deployed to prevent infections. Here, we will explore the process of clinical trials which test vaccines for safety and efficacy (whether they work), we will look at ways to measure vaccine success. Then move onto how vaccines are made and how they are deployed.

New vaccine introduction and its challenges

As we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need for new vaccines. But it isn’t just for novel emerging diseases. There are a whole host of endemic infections that would benefit from new vaccines. With changing population dynamics and climate change, different disease profiles would benefit from vaccines. Here, we will explore why we might need new vaccines. We will look what an ideal vaccine might look like, and the scientific challenges in developing one. We will then look at the real-world challenges that prevent uptake and deployment of such a vaccine, both logistic and societal.