On 24 July we visited the Doctor Merieux Biological Sciences Museum, named for the Merieux Foundation and BioMerieux, which are biotechnology-based companies that have done a lot of work regarding infectious disease. The museum itself mainly focuses on topics regarding immunology, from infectious disease ecology to the actual diagnosis and treatments of such diseases. Investigative strategies that are applicable to both humans and animals are one of the major areas of expertise of this museum. Because animals can act as carriers of dangerous diseases that can be transmitted to humans, it is often more effective and efficient to treat the animals before they actually spread the disease to humans. Animal vaccines are able to be produced and used on a large scale without massive studies that may take more than a decade, which is a necessary prerequisite for the production of human vaccines. I thought that Louis Pasteur's work with the rabies vaccine was very interesting. Before his development of the vaccine in the late 19th century, almost all cases of rabies resulted in death. By using weakened rabies virus from infected rabbits, a vaccine was developed and successfully used on a child bitten by a rabid dog. I think it is interesting to think about how these discoveries have paved the way for not only vaccines to treat more diseases, but also the entire biotechnology revolution. For example, these days transgenic animals are considered the new models for studying human disease. I found it very amazing to read about some of the early work of immunologists, and to consider how far the technology has come.
I found it interesting how the rats were effected by the flee of the plague then passed on humans and how cases kept popping up years later.
ReplyDeleteIt was really neat to learn about all the diseases and vaccines. I loved the illustrations they had for the different viruses and bacterias to show kids. I just wish we would have had more time to read the stuff they had on the walls about the different inventors and the progress of vaccines though!
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy to think about vaccines being new! I found it interesting that people were worried they'd turn into the animals vaccines were coming from.
ReplyDeleteHearing about the vaccines was very interesting to me, especially the polio vaccine because my grandma was diagnosed when she was a teenager and was luckily not paralyzed from it. The vaccine saved many children from the possibility of paralysis.
ReplyDeleteHearing about the vaccines was very interesting to me, especially the polio vaccine because my grandma was diagnosed when she was a teenager and was luckily not paralyzed from it. The vaccine saved many children from the possibility of paralysis.
ReplyDeleteHearing about the vaccines was very interesting to me, especially the polio vaccine because my grandma was diagnosed when she was a teenager and was luckily not paralyzed from it. The vaccine saved many children from the possibility of paralysis.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised they had been able to treat several viruses considering that they are permanent. Granted that the virus was not completely gone, the patients had been in remission for years
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