[Animation] - Constructing Vaccines

What do all vaccines have in common?

The purpose of all vaccines is to trigger an immune response without causing a disease. Vertebrate immune systems have the ability to produce specific immune responses to specific antigens. Antigens are structures on the surface of a pathogen that the immune system can recognize. Once the immune system has been exposed to a pathogen and created an immune response to the pathogen, it can be said to have developed immunity to that pathogen. For the rest of the life of the organism the immune system can quickly produce antibodies in response to the antigens of the pathogen. For this reason, individuals that survive an infection from a disease are often immune to further infections. The goal of a vaccine is to provide the individual with the advantages of exposure without the detrimental effects of actually getting sick.

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