• by Sophie Kleber , February 11, 2010

We are in a moment in time where science is on the verge of truly preventing infectious diseases around the world and end suffering.

The power of vaccines is like a whisper, they eliminated small pocks, polio, etc. by pre-training one's own immune system (antibodies) to recognize and defeat specific viruses much faster than if left untrained. But viruses mutate, and each new mutation needs it's own vaccination.

Is there a vaccine against HIV? HIV is one of the most mutating viruses, and developing one vaccine against this virus has not yet been accomplished, though it is possible. Retro-vaccinology: The idea of helping antibodies to identify the part of each virus mutation that needs to get neutralized.

The flu? New methods of growing life-saving vaccines in bacteria (instead of chicken eggs) make the production of vaccines much more efficient. This allows for vaccine production at much lower cost, which allows global distribution, also to the poor countries.

We once knew a world without AIDS, we owe our children a world without AIDS.