San Diego researchers find key to vaccines

Immune-system map identified

By Keith Darcé

STAFF WRITER
2:00 a.m. July 17, 2009

Developing vaccines to prevent diseases has always been a challenge for researchers, mostly because the process is as much trial-and-error as it is a precise science. But a series of new discoveries made by San Diego biologists could help vaccine makers create more effective formulations faster.

Shane Crotty at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, his colleagues and a team at Yale University have shed light on the core mechanics of immunization, which have largely remained a mystery since an English doctor created a vaccine for smallpox in 1796.

The results of their federally funded work were published yesterday in the online edition of the journal Science.

“A killer for a lot of vaccine designs has been when you try something and it fails, you're basically stuck,â€