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Vaccines

How the Swine Flu Vaccine Provides Insight Into Narcolepsy

In 2009, doctors noticed that children who got a particular strain of swine flu vaccine were suddenly much more likely to develop narcolepsy

School girls line up to receive vaccinations between classes.

How Humankind Got Ahead of Infectious Disease

With polio on the verge of eradication, a career immunologist explains the medical marvel of vaccination and the pioneers who made it possible

"Bacteria can talk to each other," says Bonnie Bassler. "Not only can they talk, but they are multilingual." And she knows how to speak their languages.

Listening to Bacteria

By studying microbial communications, Bonnie Bassler has come up with new ways to treat disease

Henrietta Lacks' cells were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.

Cracking the Code of the Human Genome

Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells

Journalist Rebecca Skloot’s new book investigates how a poor black tobacco farmer had a groundbreaking impact on modern medicine

Why does the human immune system sometimes fail to thwart invaders? John Wherry is trying to find out, the better to design a more effective flu vaccine.

Flu Fighter

With a possible pandemic in our future, immunologist John Wherry is racing to develop a once-a-lifetime vaccine

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The Nic Fix

Put down your lighters and pick up your health care cards—, nicotine vaccines are in the works

Dr. Henderson a week after he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush

35 Who Made a Difference: D. A. Henderson

Eradicating one of history’s deadliest diseases was just the beginning

Doses of oral polio vaccine are added to sugar cubes for use in a 1967 vaccination campaign

Conquering Polio

Fifty years ago, a scientific panel declared Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine a smashing success. A new book takes readers behind the headlines

Six weeks after authorities said SARS had broken out in Asia, CDC scientists in Atlanta identified a coronavirus as the culprit.

Stopping a Scourge

No one knows if SARS will strike again. But researchers’ speedy work halting the epidemic makes a compelling case study of how to combat a deadly virus

"I had a bunch of birds that had died of encephalitis at the same time people had encephalitis," says Tracey McNamara (in her Bronx apartment), a veterinary pathologist formerly at the Bronx Zoo. She helped link the virus to the 1999 epidemic.

On the Trail of the West Nile Virus

Some scientists race to develop vaccines against the scourge while others probe the possible lingering effects of the mosquito-borne infection

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Mission Impossible?

An international campaign to rid the world of polio has made dazzling progress. But some experts question whether the scourge can ever be eradicated

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