How to Superpower the Immune System

Uma Thurman played Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin.

Photo by Getty Images/Handout

For all their powers, superheroes aren?t necessarily the healthiest crew. Spider-Man is weakened by a nasty flu the night Green Goblin throws his girlfriend from a bridge. Superman is almost vanquished by a ?meteor-borne Kryptonian fungus.? After Captain Marvel seals a tank of nerve gas with his bare hands, he eventually dies of cancer.

An exception, however, is Batman?s nemesis Poison Ivy. In one version, after her botanical biochemistry professor experiments on her with poisons, she develops ?immunity to all toxins, bacteria and viruses.? No rational person would want Poison Ivy?s life (her boyfriend dies in a car crash, she is locked in an insane asylum), but who wouldn?t covet that superpower? Who wouldn?t wish to grant it to others?

Imagine you could protect babies from whooping cough from the day they were born. You could shield the elderly from deadly infections like pneumonia. You could protect millions of people from the next outbreak of pandemic flu. You could even fight cancer. Such hopes animate vaccine researchers as they look for new ways to train the immune system, ramping it up for battle (while sparing us the near-death traumas of Poison Ivy). Recent work has explored immunity boosts for the very young and very old, shots to shield against unknown flu strains, and vaccines that might treat disease or prevent recurrences in patients with prostate cancer, melanoma, and breast cancer. ?

Kids today, it turns out, already have superimmunity compared with their peers 100 years ago: Thanks to vaccines, their bodies learn to fight measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria, and other deadly diseases. With a few exceptions, though, this kick-ass training can?t begin at birth. That?s because newborns? immune cells don?t respond vigorously enough to most vaccines to lock in later protection. Babies don?t receive their first whooping cough shot until they?re 2 months old, and they aren?t fully protected until after a third dose, at 6 months. For measles, they aren?t vaccinated until their first birthdays. These delays can have devastating consequences. In the 2010 outbreak of whooping cough in California, 10 babies died?almost all of them younger than 2 months.

But what if researchers could design immunizations for newborns? Scientists at Boston Children?s Hospital have identified several molecules that seem specifically able to stimulate immune cells isolated from umbilical cord blood, at least in Petri dishes. Now they?re testing whether newborn animals that receive vaccines combined with these molecules develop better protection against bacterial diseases like pneumonia than animals given nonboosted vaccines. (Of course, they?re also studying whether supercharging newborn immune systems is safe.) ?We?re asking whether vaccines that are typically given at 2, 4, and 6 months could be done with a single shot at birth,? if given along with booster molecules, said Ofer Levy, a pediatric infectious diseases expert who is leading the work. Researchers are similarly bullish on immunity boosts for the elderly, who are at higher risk for pneumonia and other infectious diseases and seem not to respond as vigorously to standard vaccines. ?I?m quite convinced that we will develop new vaccines for the aging population in the next decade,? Jan Poolman, the global head of bacterial vaccines for Janssen pharmaceutical companies, told me.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=50672fa69886807ff91bbb8bbcae7ab1

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