Is it possible to create a vaccine that mutates?

Question

So we can be protected against all viruses. Like if we created a harmless germ that constantly mutated in our bloodstream but spread fast enough to where it wouldn't be killed off so that we would produce antibodies for every kind?

I already know how a vaccine works, I'm talking about a germ that mutates its protein often but the germ itself is harmless to us so that our antibodies will still kill it and we will become immune to that protein format.

Answer 1

i dont think so, but whoever does would be rich, i dont know, but i highly doubt it

Answer 2

No. A vaccine works by showing the immune system the outer coating of a pathogen, allowing the body to create antibodies to it. There is a nearly infinite number of possibilities for those coatings, so there is no way a single virus could mutate rapidly enough to make that happen. You need to have a significant number of these viruses all showing the same configuration for the body to make an amply response, so unless you could get them to all mutate in the same way, you would just have a lot of different virons floating around, none of them matching, or you would have so many viruses in your system, they would overload your body. Also, at that high of a mutation rate, it would eventually develop mutations that made it pathogenic.

You would also have to worry about the development of auto immune disease, with a body pumping out that many antibodies.

But it's an interesting thought

Answer 3

If you were able to develop a vaccine against every possible antigen known to date, then then come up with every theoretically possible mutation that could happen, then maybe. Of course if your body were to produce an immune response to every single antigen, it would overwork itself and you would die.

Answer 4

nope, the nature of a vaccine makes that impossible. a vaccine is made to counteract a specific viral protien, when the protien mutates, that vaccine is no longer effective and another has to be made. A virus is alive, the vaccine is not.

Answer 5

I doubt it. The viruses would mutate and keep ahead of the vaccine.

Answer 6

That sure would be nice, I think there working on it but as of date with no success!

Answer 7

"The_only_solorose" is quite correct and for the reasons she stated. Give her a Best Answer.

Answer 8

i dont know

Answer 9

i have no idea.... i guess....