What are Adjuvants?

March 29, 2023

A Chinese research team recently created two novel broad-spectrum adjuvants that can dramatically boost the immune response to vaccines using computer-aided molecular design and machine learning.

About Adjuvants:

  • What is it? An adjuvant is a substance that is added to a vaccine to stimulate and enhance the magnitude and durability of the immune response.
  • They are commonly used to improve the effectiveness of a vaccine.
  • Adjuvants allow for lesser quantities of the vaccine and fewer doses. 
  • Generally, they are injected alongside an antigen to help the immune system generate antibodies that fight the antigen.
  • Adjuvanted vaccines can cause more local reactions (such as redness, swelling, and pain at the injection site) and more systemic reactions (such as fever, chills and body aches) than non-adjuvanted vaccines.
  • Example: Aluminum adjuvants are used in vaccines such as hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-containing vaccines etc.

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