A University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher has received more than $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health to figure out how vaccines work. Andrea Ferrante hopes his work will lead to more effective inoculations against diseases, such as the Ebola or Zika viruses.
This story involves peptides, and at least two specialized cells in the human body. But maybe it’s easiest to think of UAF scientist Andrea Ferrante’s research as editing and advertising. He says when viruses or bacteria enter our system they are met by specialized cells that absorbs the invaders and breaks them into molecular bits called peptides. Then they advertise the peptides to cells that actually fight disease, called T-cells. Think of it as someone chucking a tiny copy of Hamlet into our system. The specialized cells break the play into speeches and dialogue. Then they broadcast key passages, like “To be or not to be.” And the T-Cells say:
“I know that! Because that ‘To be or not to be’, I can read enough of that play that I remember that it’s Shakespeare and that’s Hamlet,” Ferrante said.
What Farrante wants to understand, and has received $1.6 million from the NIH to study, is what tells the specialized cell, called a dendritic cell, where to cut and what peptides to advertise. It’s as if the dendritic cell knows “To be or not to be” is catchy and will stick in the T-cells memory for a longer time.
“We do know something about it," Farrante said. "It’s not sufficient to use it for vaccine design. And so that’s where we’re trying to give a contribution in this specific field of study.”
Ferrante says a better grasp of the dendritic cell’s chemical editing language and advertising strategy may allow for more effective vaccines in the future.