In 1797, a Gloucestershire surgeon called Edward Jenner protected a small boy from smallpox by inoculating him with cowpox. In 1977, nearly two centuries after that first ‘vaccination’, a hospital cook called Ali Maow Maalin recovered from the last natural smallpox infection. Thanks to Jenner’s insight, we no longer live with smallpox.
By then, it was clear that Jenner’s insight was merely the beginning.
During the 1870s, Louis Pasteur led a revolution in medical science by showing that microbes cause disease. He didn’t stop there; he went on to modify microbes to protect against disease. He had turned the phenomenon discovered by Jenner into a set of principles and those principles have underpinned vaccine development for the last century and a half.
We now have an array of vaccines produced by techniques that Jenner and Pasteur could never have dreamed of and as microbes are constantly evolving, so must vaccinology. This is the story of vaccinology’s evolution from a Gloucestershire barnyard to the cutting-edge biotechnology that brings COVID-19 vaccines to the high street pharmacy.
Bio
David Miles is an infectious disease immunologist who has worked mostly on diseases of childhood in Africa and the vaccinations that protect against them. He now lives in London and tutors on the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s online MSc course. His first popular science book, How Vaccines Work, was published in March 2023.
Website: https://www.variolator.com/
Twitter: @Variolator
Bluesky: @variolator.bsky.social
Standard Stuff
Talks are usually on the 4th Wednesday of every month, at 7:00 for 7:30, at The Winchester Club in Winchester. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info.
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