Topic: vaccination

Laura Graus explains a multi-omics workflow that combines B-cell receptor repertoire analysis with phenotypic profiling using dCODE Klickmer technology. The seminar examines how the pipeline characterizes B-cell responses after vaccination and infection, including the function and dynamics of memory B-cell reactivation. Its application to vaccination studies illustrates how single-cell measurements can inform HIV-1 vaccine design.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome impose major disease and economic burdens on poultry and swine production. Paula Chen and Kiho Lee examine gene editing as a way to reduce susceptibility and improve animal health. Chen presents genome-editing approaches to preventing poultry disease; Lee discusses improving the genetic value of pigs through gene-editing technology. The programme connects these strategies to the continuing challenges posed by viral outbreaks, evolving PRRS variants and debate about vaccination as a control measure.

After more than 4 million deaths worldwide, the ongoing vaccination to conquer the COVID-19 disease is now competing with the emergence of increasingly contagious mutations, repeatedly supplanting earlier strains. Following the near-absence of historical examples of the long-time evolution of infectious diseases under similar circumstances, models are crucial to exemplify possible scenarios. Accordingly, in the present work we systematically generalize the popular susceptible-infected-recovered model to account for mutations leading to repeatedly occurring new strains, which we coarse grain ba