Professor Adrian Hill is creating a well-crafted "potion" of ingredients which, when combined inside a vaccine, could prepare our immune system to attack biological invaders. This could protect us from a range of diseases such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. This will be a new class of vaccine that will probably, hopefully eliminate all diseases. He is testing these vaccines on people. He’s also trialled in Ebola vaccines and his institute has one in development for Zika. Professor Adrian Hill however, sets his heart on finding a cure for malaria.
Hill is targeting the cellular arm of the immune system. This is the home of the CD8 T-cells and these cells are also known as the killer cells. Killer cells have the ability to kill any cells that are infected including cancer cells.
His latest formula is called the prime-boost approach. This formula has a combination of two viruses that have been given the DNA of the malaria parasite. Hill and his team believe that this is the winning formula. It has protected 100% in mice that had malaria when before it was only protecting 20%.
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