Advances for the Human Body in the Near Future (part 1)

As science continues to advance rapidly, more and more discoveries are being made about the human body. Though we may think of the future as involving many technological advances (and no doubt it will), there are many biological technologies in store for us as well. One such development that is currently being explored by DARPA involves turning the human body into a bio-factory to generate antibodies for use in vaccine production. The current process for making a vaccine is 9 months, but if DARPA's research proves successful, the human body could produce antibodies in much less time and with much more effectiveness. Consider that the 2009 flu vaccine protected only 1.6 percent of the population—in all other cases, it failed to immunize the patient against the virus. However, with a single shot into a person's muscle cells, a genetic antibody recipe could be introduced that would cause RNA to convey these instructions and produce many copies of the necessary antibodies, which are then harvested for use in other patients. If the human body is utilized as a bio-factory to produce antibodies, we might see more effective vaccines produced in much less time. This study is somewhat predicated upon the success seen with the antibodies produced by Americans who survived Ebola infection.