Viral variant vaccine

A team from Duke-NUS Medical School rapidly developed a live-attenuated Zika vaccine candidate by exploiting genetic errors to identify a strain with high viremia and reduced propagation. The approach could speed development of live vaccines against other viruses, including other flaviviruses and viruses that cause persistent organ infection.

Live-attenuated vaccines provide the longest duration of immunity compared with other types of vaccines, but development is a lengthy process and safety risks associated with the modality must be overcome...