In 2008, my wife and I met up with our son and his girlfriend in Indonesia. The trip was for fun and enlightenment about the culture of Indonesia. However, part of the trip was quite serious. We were bringing refrigerated hepatitis vaccine to David and Sue that they didn’t have time to get in California. We are lucky that we have a refrigerated supply chain, part commercial and part our own, to deliver temperature-sensitive vaccines. Most of the world does not.
Vaccines that warm denature and become useless. What can be done right now, before the refrigerated supply chain forms? Vaccine proteins can be stabilized chemically but releasing them from the stabilizers is very problematic. Simona Bianca at the University of Glasgow and 9 colleagues have a new idea. They gel the protein(s) with water and common potassium carbonate. With agitation and heat they load the gel into a syringe, where it remains stable, even up to 50°C (122°F). To inject the vaccine protein you push hard on the syringe plunger. The gel liquefies, much as toothpaste, gelatin, and pectin thin under stress. There’s a fine filter in front of the needle to create a big drag force that causes the liquefaction. No chemicals other than water and a simple salt contaminate the injected fluid. This is cool, or, rather, OK when the syringe even gets warm.
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org.
Ref.: Nature, 18 July 24, pp. 544 ff.
