A SUCCESSFUL trial of a DNA vaccine has raised hopes that babies could be
vaccinated against diseases such as measles soon after birth. At present,
protective jabs are ineffective until infants are a few months old.
Conventional vaccines don’t work in very young babies because the maternal
antibodies lingering in their blood mop up injected virus particles before their
immune systems can respond. With a DNA vaccine, however, infants produce viral
proteins inside their own cells, hidden away from any maternal response.
Lindsay Whitton and Daniel Hassett at the Scripps Research Institute in
California gave three-day-old mice a single injection…
