Vaccinating the Un-Vaccinatable

Imagine a story. Earth’s population faces extinction from a predator that takes no prisoners. Every fortress invaded; the population dies… to the last individual. No survivors, no mercy, and no solution. Then an outsider steps forth from obscurity with a gift providing hope. Sounds like a great novel doesn’t it? In some ways, the story likens itself to the Marvel movie Dr. Strange who performs the impossible to turn back time and provide an answer when all seems lost.

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Podcast: Vaccinating the Un-vaccinatable
Length: 8 minutes 54 seconds
Written and read by the author

Two superhero women from the University of Helsinki hold similar powers and are working to stop extinction. Extinction of whom? Well, honeybees specifically but due to bee’s importance in the global food chain and the web of life, perhaps these two scientists are helping to protect mankind from extinction as well.

Dr. Salmela holds degrees in biotechnology and genetics while Dr. Freitak’s superpowers are in ecology and molecular biology. Together, these two are accomplishing the un-accomplishable – to vaccinate a honeybee.

Now, you may think that the implausibility of this lies in how to inject a vaccine into a bee’s shoulder and both survive the process. The delivery of the vaccine is not the hurdle. Shakespeare’s quote takes a literal stance with “sweet are the uses of adversity.” Like the 1960’s sugar-cube polio vaccine, the honeybee vaccine is delivered orally in a sugary treat.

The obstacle is that insects don’t make antibodies. In general, we deliver vaccines to an organism to stimulate the adaptive immune system. This leads to the formation of immunoglobulins specific to the pathogen. However, if you can’t make an antibody, then how would a vaccine work? The assumed answer has been that “vaccines wouldn’t work in insects.”

For a long time, this situation posed no problems. Fewer insects? Sounds nice and cuts down on my exterminator bill, right? Well, in the ’90s, when bees and butterflies began noticeably disappearing; the broader ramifications of fewer insects began to become apparent.

As foulbrood rose as one of the underlying causes of global bee disappearance, the search for a solution began. The situation has been and remains bleak. The bacterium is gram-positive and as such, can form spores which survive for over 50 years. Foulbrood’s spore form resists both freezing and extreme heat. Scientists have found it around the globe. Due to the destructive nature of this bacterium, once infected, burning the entire hive presents itself as the best first choice. A couple of antibiotic options exist, but resistance has been documented. Treatment of a colony is challenging and often starting from scratch can be best.

With an adversary like this, innovation and stretching the boundaries of possibility become necessary. The solution originated with a compound as fascinating as the vaccine. Vitellogenin refers to a variety of lipoglycoproteins essential during the early development stages within many species. For chickens and fish, vitellogenin act as a precursor for most proteins in the yolk. Being an ancient protein, this is used across many species, and humans have a related compound utilized within their own growth.

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