Vaccine Booster

This video shows a mouse lymph node full of stem cell-like memory T cells (T_SCM), coloured yellow. These cells are important for long-term immune memory and their generation and maintenance are considered crucial for the lasting protection induced by certain vaccines. It has been reasoned, therefore, that boosting these cells alongside an immunisation could enhance a vaccine’s protective power. And now researchers have figured out how to do just that – by transiently inhibiting interferon-1 signalling upon delivery of a vaccine. Interferons are inflammatory cytokines produced early in infection or immediately following a vaccination and they promote the development of effector T cells [those executing the immune response]. Because these effector cells develop from T_SCM cells, it’s thought that transiently blocking their development would enable the precursor T_SCM cell numbers to expand. Sure enough, this trick improved vaccine-induced protection against a rodent virus in mice, suggesting it may work in humans too.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Video from work by Benjamin J. Broomfield and colleagues
• Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Journal of Experimental Medicine, March 2025