USC researchers have developed a polio vaccine that doesn’t require refrigeration, meaning it could someday be used all over the world to deliver the final blow to this longtime foe.
USC researchers have developed a polio vaccine that doesn’t require refrigeration, meaning it could someday be used all over the world to deliver the final blow to this longtime foe.
The vaccine, which was freeze-dried into a powder, kept at room temperature for four weeks and then rehydrated, offered full protection against the polio virus when tested in mice.
“Stabilization is not rocket science, so most academics don’t pay much attention to this field,” said the study’s first author, Woo-Jin Shin, a fellow in the lab of Jae Jung, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “However, no matter how wonderful a drug or vaccine is, if it isn’t stable enough to be transported, it doesn’t do anyone much good.”
The study appears in the Nov. 27 issue of the journal mBio.
Read more at University of Southern California
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