 Hello friends, in this video we are going to discuss about the world's first plasmid DNA vaccine for COVID-19 i.e. ZycovD by Zydus Cadilla. Now before going to the vaccine per se, we need to understand about the general immune response. Whenever any foreign virus or bacteria comes into our body, that will enter and it will multiply. Soon after multiplication, our antigen-presenting cells which is present within our body, they are similar to the patrol which is so these antigen-presenting cells identify these foreign antigens and take it to the immune cells and it will create cell-mediated immunity and antibody mediated immunity. This antibody mediated immunity is by the B cells which causes these immunoglobulins or the antibodies which can neutralize the virus. On the other hand, the cell-mediated immunity is by cytotoxic or killer CD8 plus T cells which produce and release certain cytotoxins which kill these infected cells. So this happens even in a normal disease or through vaccine. This happens naturally in any disease process but if we are making this immune response without the disease that can be done through the vaccine. So now we are going to see the types of vaccines. Traditionally we have this live attenuated vaccine, inactivated vaccine and subunit vaccines. After 2015, the usage of these vector vaccines and the genetic vaccines such as DNA and RNA has increased. So live attenuated vaccine, we will give the live virus where the disease causing potential has been removed and create the same immune response. Whereas in killed or inactivated vaccine either by heat or chemical, the virus will be killed and the antigen will be presented as the dead or killed virus into the body and the same antigen presenting cells create the immune response and memory. This technology is used in polio and currently our Bharat biotech co-vaccine and Sinovac, Sinoforma from China are using this technology for COVID-19 disease. For completion sake let me tell about the subunit vaccine. The subunit vaccine contains part of the virus which will be injected into the body and create the same antibody response within the body and create the immune response and memory. So this can be further divided into virus like particles, toxides, recombinant subunit vaccines, conjugate vaccines and polysaccharide vaccines. Now after 2015, the usage of this vector vaccines and genetic vaccines are revolutionizing the field of vaccines. One thing we should be thankful to COVID-19 and the coronavirus is that this vaccine technology has moved to a different level and hopefully in near future we will get vaccines for the other viral diseases also. So this is a vector technology where there will be a low pathogenic virus which will act as a carrier for the antigenic material of the disease-causing vector. So this will be incorporated into this low pathogenic virus. It will enter into the body as usual it will multiply and cause this immune response and memory. So this mechanism when it multiplies it is called as replicating viral vector technology. If there is no multiplication then that is called as non replicating viral vector technology. This non replicating viral vector vaccine is used in your CoV shield that is the Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine and also in Sputnik v. The basic difference between these two is the Sputnik vaccine has different first and second dose because the low pathogenic virus which is the vector used for these viruses are different and coming to the genetic vaccines we have DNA vaccine and RNA vaccine. So we all know DNA is the major ingredient of the nucleus and from which the RNA will be produced and from which the protein synthesis happens. So if we create the DNA plasmid like this and incorporate into a cell if we present it to the body the same kind of immune response memory will be there. Instead of creating the DNA material immediate product of DNA to form protein is this RNA so if we create this RNA and incorporate into the cell and produce the same memory that is called RNA vaccine so currently we have Modena and Pfizer are the commonly used RNA vaccines especially in CoV-19. The major disadvantage of these vaccines are the low temperature of maintenance that is about minus 20 degrees centigrade whereas this DNA vaccine does not need such low temperatures in fact it has been proved stable at 25 degrees centigrade also. This Sidus CoV-D vaccine is one of such DNA vaccine and in history there has been no DNA vaccine which has been given to humans and this is the first DNA vaccine for any disease. Now we are moving to the proper Sidus CoV-D vaccine so this is the world's first plasmid DNA vaccine given for CoV-19. It has received emergency usage approval from the drug controller general of India is going to be intradermal needle-free and painless. It will be administered in three doses on day zero four weeks later the second dose and eight weeks later the third dose. The main advantage of this Sidus Cadillac vaccine is that it can be injected to people between 12 to 18 years of age and safety wise DNA vaccine are the most safe vaccines of all the vaccines theoretically but for this vaccine in particular we need to monitor the side effects and the phase four trials will yield a better results. This was originally developed by Sidus Cadillac and in collaboration with DPT Birak that is Department of Biotechnology and the other main advantage of this vaccine is it has reported that it is effective against the mutant variants of coronavirus especially the delta variant. The other advantage of this DNA vaccines are that theoretically it is easy to redesign whenever the mutating virus appears. So if we are encountering a new variant suddenly this DNA vaccines can be changed and this new vaccines will protect against that variant also. So that switchover can be done very fast when compared to any other vaccines and the other factor of which we need to consider is that these DNA vaccines are stable at 2 to 8 degrees centigrade and in fact it can withstand up to 25 degrees centigrade temperature also. So in tropical countries especially like India, Zycomedy is going to be a game changer. If you like this video please add to your friends. Subscribe to my channel. 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