What are vaccines? (Topic: The World of Microbes)
Answers
The world as we know it couldn’t exist without microbes. It is estimated that there are tens of trillions of bacteria living just in and on humans. (Ewww?) One trillion has 12 zeros. To put that in perspective, the entire human population on earth is only 7.3 billion with a measly 9 zeros. With that many microbes on you, it would be naïve to think microbes do not play a role in your day-to-day life and health. But just what do they do? In this article, Part 1 of a 4 part series, I will cover antibiotics and vaccines.
Normally when people talk about microbes, they talk about the bad guys (germs!) that make us feel sick. But microbes are not without their uses. Yes, some are deadly, and some can cause hygienic problems such as bad breath and body odors. However, many microbes prevent disease and benefit the body. Such is the case with our food digestion, where microbes provide animals (like us) with metabolic pathways we would otherwise lack.
Moreover, microbes have been harnessed to produce many clinically important compounds such as vaccines and antibiotics. So microbes are nothing to sneeze at. Then there is the newest microbe trend in medicine: the use of probiotics to encourage or discourage select microbe populations living within us. And when we take a moment to consider the fruitful history of microbes in medicine, it is easy to see why we must make every effort to understanding the biology of microbes. Our next great therapeutic or technological advance may very well involve a microbe or its product.
Now let’s take a look at a two useful microbial products in this article: Antibiotics and Vaccines